Reviews
Daria Martin
Maureen Paley, London
28 October – 7 December
Review by Kim Dhillon
The opening sequence of Daria Martin's new film Harpstrings and Lava (2007) is more cinematic than you normally expect of artists' films. The camera pans over a still life, and among various decorative knick-knacks on a table is a lump of lava and some glass bottles and vases, which have the names of Martin and her collaborators (actor Nina Fog and musician Zeena Parkins) ornately etched onto them.
Daria Martin, who was nominated for the now defunct Beck's Futures prize in 2005, is known for her 16mm films in which she creates fantasy worlds and stages relationships between performers in situations borrowed from dance, sports and entertainment. Harpstrings and Lava delves into a murkier area, recreating the childhood nightmare of a friend of Martin's: a bizarre vision of lava flowing around harp strings that haunted her waking hours too. Martin had similar nightmares as a child: hallucinatory visions of viscerally clashing opposites. Taking this at face value (though my childhood nightmares were far less discursive), it seems to be a lyrical metaphor for tension and coexistence.
The nightmare isn't so much the plot of the film as its driving idea. Martin tries to re-imagine the scene from within her friend's mind's eye, making Harpstrings and Lava an attempt to channel another person's subconscious and render it visual – and, typical of Martin, physical. Heavily influenced by Postmodern choreography, where every movement is understood as dance, Martin captures with intimacy and immediacy her actors' movements.
A young woman with messy hair and unkempt clothing (played by Nina Fog) – a character presumably inspired by Martin's friend – is startled awake from her slumber in a woodland. Her eyes dart around like a nervous animal; she appears feral. As she crawls on the leaves and dirt, her feet and hands move in rhythm, and Martin keeps the camera tight on the details of her body. We see every pucker, bite and breath as the woman nibbles on foraged food like a rabbit, and crouches over a drum skin made of tin foil, hitting it, blowing on it, eventually breaking the surface and ripping it.
The camera pans along a twisted branch, segueing us to another scene, in which a poised and pristine woman (played by Zeena Parkins) sits in a stylised Gothic arcade playing her harp – the elegant opposite of Fog's character. The camera crops are equally close, resting on the harpist's eyes and fingers, and the reverberating rhythms of her actions. After several cuts between the two women, the feral woman enters the harpist's formal realm, and the two share the same space. The film ends here, 13 minutes later, unresolved, and drips with enough references to the subconscious to make a Jungian's head spin.
As a continuation of Martin's work (in the vein of Birds, 2001, and In the Palace, 2000), Harpstrings and Lava develops her desire to make the body tangible and movement visceral on film, but it's most interesting achievement – faced with such obscure second hand source material – is the way Martin has channeled her friend’s vision and made it her own.
28 October – 7 December
Review by Kim Dhillon
The opening sequence of Daria Martin's new film Harpstrings and Lava (2007) is more cinematic than you normally expect of artists' films. The camera pans over a still life, and among various decorative knick-knacks on a table is a lump of lava and some glass bottles and vases, which have the names of Martin and her collaborators (actor Nina Fog and musician Zeena Parkins) ornately etched onto them.
Daria Martin, who was nominated for the now defunct Beck's Futures prize in 2005, is known for her 16mm films in which she creates fantasy worlds and stages relationships between performers in situations borrowed from dance, sports and entertainment. Harpstrings and Lava delves into a murkier area, recreating the childhood nightmare of a friend of Martin's: a bizarre vision of lava flowing around harp strings that haunted her waking hours too. Martin had similar nightmares as a child: hallucinatory visions of viscerally clashing opposites. Taking this at face value (though my childhood nightmares were far less discursive), it seems to be a lyrical metaphor for tension and coexistence.
The nightmare isn't so much the plot of the film as its driving idea. Martin tries to re-imagine the scene from within her friend's mind's eye, making Harpstrings and Lava an attempt to channel another person's subconscious and render it visual – and, typical of Martin, physical. Heavily influenced by Postmodern choreography, where every movement is understood as dance, Martin captures with intimacy and immediacy her actors' movements.
A young woman with messy hair and unkempt clothing (played by Nina Fog) – a character presumably inspired by Martin's friend – is startled awake from her slumber in a woodland. Her eyes dart around like a nervous animal; she appears feral. As she crawls on the leaves and dirt, her feet and hands move in rhythm, and Martin keeps the camera tight on the details of her body. We see every pucker, bite and breath as the woman nibbles on foraged food like a rabbit, and crouches over a drum skin made of tin foil, hitting it, blowing on it, eventually breaking the surface and ripping it.
The camera pans along a twisted branch, segueing us to another scene, in which a poised and pristine woman (played by Zeena Parkins) sits in a stylised Gothic arcade playing her harp – the elegant opposite of Fog's character. The camera crops are equally close, resting on the harpist's eyes and fingers, and the reverberating rhythms of her actions. After several cuts between the two women, the feral woman enters the harpist's formal realm, and the two share the same space. The film ends here, 13 minutes later, unresolved, and drips with enough references to the subconscious to make a Jungian's head spin.
As a continuation of Martin's work (in the vein of Birds, 2001, and In the Palace, 2000), Harpstrings and Lava develops her desire to make the body tangible and movement visceral on film, but it's most interesting achievement – faced with such obscure second hand source material – is the way Martin has channeled her friend’s vision and made it her own.
Tags: artreview, daria martin, kim dhillon, maureen paley, on view, reviews
