Steven Bode – författare

Mark Lewis’ work functions as a critique of cinema, encouraging the viewer’s awareness of the clichés, conventions and fragmentary nature of film, and how it has been constructed historically. In so doing, he also acknowledges its suggestive power, and the alluring, seductive visual qualities of the medium, whilst maintaining a certain critical distance in his extraction and re-evaluation of its components.This catalogue provides a survey of Lewis’ film works from 1995-2000, featuring contributions from Charles Esche, Steven Bode, Lizzie Francke and Catherine Pavlovic.

This abridged A-Z of Alan Currall’s artistic practice looks back over a body of disarmingly homegrown video works that culminates in what (for Currall) is the magnum opus of ‘Encyclopaedia’, a prophetic parody of a kind of user-generated wiki-almanac, with entries (on a dazzlingly diverse range of subjects) from the artist’s immediate circle of family and friends. Adding to this repository of human knowledge are two essays by art critics Claire Doherty and Sean Cubitt, interspersed with fragments of Currall’s video work. The publication is completed by a CD-Rom of ‘Encylopaedia’ itself.Published by Film and Video Umbrella. Publication supported by a Regional Arts Lottery Programme award from West Midlands Arts.The ‘Encyclopaedia’ CD-Rom was supported by the New Media Projects Fund of the Arts Council of England. ‘Encyclopaedia’ was made possible with the support of the 1998 Richard Hough Bursary.

Jane Prophet’s ‘Decoy’ was a groundbreaking digital art work in which images of the grounds of iconic British country houses were overlaid with subtly evolving computer-generated landscapes, highlighting both the artificiality of these apparently natural vistas, and the alternative ways in which nature might have transformed the scene over time. Reflecting on the history and politics of landscape design, and the extent to which it was informed by the conventions of classical painting, the book features essays by Sophie Howarth and Steven Bode, and an interview with the artist by Simon Willmoth.Published by Film and Video Umbrella. Supported by the Arts Council of England, East England Arts and Norwich School of Art and Design.

The first English-language publication dedicated to the work of Norwegian artist Anne Katrine Dolven, ‘It Could Happen to You’ catalogues five film and video ‘portraits’ produced between 2000 and 2001. While alluding to paintings by the Norwegian master Edvard Munch, Dolven also adds recognisably contemporary elements to her treatment of landscape and still life. This compact and elegant hardback publication is illustrated in colour throughout with a selection of documentation shots, details from the works and production stills.Produced to accompany the staging of Dolven’s film ‘It Could Happen to You’ at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in June and July 2001, the book features texts by Steven Bode and Michael Glasmeier, and an interview with the artist by Ele Carpenter.

The first publication devoted to the work of Carey Young, an artist whose work provocatively and playfully questions familiar notions of art as a mode of resistance and critique in a world of dissolving boundaries, in which the borders between politics, culture and business seem to have disappeared. Having worked within business for several years, Young presents the role of the artist potentially to be that of an infiltrator within the inner world of the multinational, adopting its language, codes and tools, as well as its tactics of disappearance, in order to offer an insider’s perspective on to the formation and control of mass culture. 

Features essays by Alex Farquharson, John Kelsey and Jeremy Millar, a collaborative text by Carey Young and Liam Gillick and an introduction by Steven Bode.

Published to coincide Adam Chodzko’s touring exhibition of 2002, ‘Plans and Spells’ places this particular body of work within the broader context of this artist’s highly individual oeuvre.Richly illustrated with colour plates throughout, and featuring four commissioned texts which range widely across Chodzko’s career, this publication presents an illuminating portrait of one of the most singular and distinctive bodies of work in contemporary British art.

Coinciding with the exhibition of her installation ‘Pidgin: interrupted transmission’ in 2001, this small-format book considers this keynote work alongside the rest of Erika Tan’s inventive and multifaceted practice. Echoing the linguistic and iconographic dexterity of the work itself, this imaginatively designed publication features essays by Nikos Papastergiadis and Steven Bode, and an in-conversation between the artist and Simon Willmoth.

In September 2001, the artist Graham Gussin undertook a journey to a place called Askja, in what is known as the ‘lunar desert’ of Iceland. As Gussin was traveling through this remote and featureless but strangely beautiful landscape, a remote viewer - an individual with paranormal abilities who has been trained to see over great distances - was asked to track his movements and pinpoint his location. This publication provides a further document of the project, featuring film stills, installation photographs, and other behind-the-scenes material.Interview and discussion with Graham Gussin, Chris Darke and Steven Bode

Following on from an earlier monograph, ‘Mark Lewis: Films 1995-2000’, this publication documents a more recent series of film works produced by the artist since 2000, which continue his evocative reflections upon the cinematic history of medium.Extensively illustrated and featuring essays by Steven Bode, David Turnbull and Jean-Pierre Rehm, the book was published to accompany two large-scale exhibitions of Lewis’s work that took place at MOMA, Oxford in 2001 and at Villa Arson in Nice in 2001/2002.

A large-format publication documenting the various elements and stages of Johan Grimonprez’s project ‘Looking for Alfred’ which uses film, video and photography, as well as storyboards and other drawings by the artist, in an imaginative pursuit of the multi-faceted legacy of Alfred Hitchcock.Published in conjunction with Grimomprez’s exhibition ‘Looking for Alfred’, at Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, 2007, this full colour publication features essays by Patricia Allmer, Thomas Elsaesser and Tom McCarthy, with texts by Jorge L. Borges, Jeff Noon and Slavoj Zizek, alongside an interview with the artist by Chris Darke. The book retraces the themes of the lookalike and the double that recur in Grimonprez’s work, and are such a feature of Hitchcock’s own oeuvre, whilst providing insightful explorations into the artist’s broader practice.‘Looking for Alfred’ is published by Film and Video Umbrella, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Pinakothek der Moderne and Zapomatik, with the support of Theo Wormland Stiftung, Arts Council England, The Flemish Authorities, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels and SMAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Gent. With additional support from Sean Kelly Gallery and Deitch Projects.

This survey of Duncan Campbell’s inventive and provocative practice looks back over a number of arresting, meticulously assembled film works that this Dublin-born, Glasgow-based artist has produced during the last decade, and coincides with the launch of the latest in that series, ‘Make it new John’ (2009). The book features a new essay by Martin Herbert, and an in-conversation between the artist and critic, Melissa Gronlund.Published by Film and Video Umbrella and Tramway.

Simon Martin’s artistic practice deftly illuminates the unsung histories of familiar objects, the unspoken dynamics of artistic canons and institutional spaces, and the unseen connections between the disparate products of different eras, or indeed our own. These longstanding preoccupations have resulted in a correspondingly crafted and eclectic body of work which encompasses various forms, and which is punctuated by regular and significant film pieces, including the trilogy Carlton (2006), Louis Ghost Chair (2012) and Ur Feeling (2014). Featuring essays by critics Dan Fox and Melissa Gronlund, and art historian Neil Mulholland, the publication focuses on these film works, while ranging across the wider backdrop of Martin’s ideas and concerns. Designed by Fraser Muggeridge Studio, the book is a desirable object in its own right, as well as an indispensible primer to this compelling and intriguing artist’s work.Edited by Steven Bode and Elena Hill, and with thanks to Patrick Langley.Published by Film and Video Umbrella and Elena Hill.Copyright 2015 Film and Video Umbrella, Elena Hill, the artists and the authors.

This publication accompanies the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2016, for which emerging artists Karen Kramer and Alice May Williams were commissioned to create major new works. The artists’ works respond in different ways to the theme of ‘Borrowed Time’, with its allusion to escalating levels of personal and national debt and a wider feeling of economic unease or ecological threat caused by our exploitation of natural resources and the impact it has on the environment.With dedicated texts by Steven Bode and an essay by Laurence Scott, the publication probes these ideas and explores the ways in which the theme resonates with the new works by Kramer and Williams.The Jerwood/FVU Awards are a collaboration between Jerwood Charitable Foundation and FVU in association with CCA, Glasgow and University of East London.

'An English Journey’ is a combined book and DVD project by the artist Andrew Cross. Published to coincide with Cross’ video and photographic exhibition ‘3 hours from here’ it casts a typically adroit and observant eye over the changing face of the English landscape and its ever-expanding road transport network. Following the route (from Southampton to the North West of England) followed by J.B. Priestley in his 1930s state-of-the-nation travel book ‘English Journey’, it closes in on that increasingly ubiquitous mainstay of the contemporary English road, the long-distance container lorry.Featuring essays by the renowned social historian and geographer Doreen Massey, and by project curators Steven Bode and Bernadette Buckley, this beautifully designed small-format publication also incorporates extracts from Priestley’s original text. The accompanying DVD includes a special interactive and extended version of Cross’s video record of the journey, ‘3 hours from here’.Published by Film and Video Umbrella, in collaboration with John Hansard Gallery.

Charting the span of Susan Collins’ ‘Seascape’ from its earliest online manifestations to its gallery exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, this publication offers an overview of this innovative project which used digital technology to bring a new element to a long-standing pictorial tradition reflecting man’s enduring relationship to the sea. Featuring essays by art historian Nicholas Alfrey and critic Sean Cubitt, alongside a wealth of images and other background information, the book sets out to capture the many different facets of this remarkable piece of work, highlighting the sheer volume of material that has been generated over the course of its development.Published by Film and Video Umbrella. Supported by Arts Council England.

This publication accompanies the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2015, for which emerging artists Lucy Clout and Marianna Simnett were commissioned to create major new works, in response to a designated theme.The theme, as suggested by the title ‘What Will They See of Me?', alludes to the pressures (and perils) of visibility in a digital world, where images of the self are routinely circulated and exchanged; but also reflects underlying insecurities about personal identity and, beyond that, wider anxieties about what we might be leaving behind for posterity.With dedicated texts by Steven Bode and an essay by Josh Cohen, the publication probes these ideas and explores the ways in which the theme resonates with the new works by Clout and Simnett.The Jerwood/FVU Awards are a collaboration between Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Film and Video Umbrella (FVU) in association with Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow and University of East London, School of Arts and Digital Industries. FVU is supported by Arts Council England.