Authentic Self - Part 2
Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2011
Venue: Phoenix
Following the success of The Authentic Self film screening in November 2010 The Cutting Room are re-screening the showreel to further get to grips with the ideas surrounding an Authentic Self at Pheonix Square Leicester.
With a few tweaks on the line up the showreel presents a few new additions which will be followed by a panel discussion. Featuring Child of the Atom by David Blandy and Dance Like My Dad by Hetain Patel
David Blandy investigates the cultural forces that inform and influence him and ultimately construct his identity, ranging from his love of hip hop and soul, to computer games and manga. His works slip between performance and video, reality and construct, using references sampled from the wide, disparate sources that provide his (and our own) sense of self.
Child of The Atom was generated by an underlying guilt about his own and also his daughter's existence, Blandy's film documents their visit to Hiroshima to literally and symbolically search for their 'origins'. "There is a familial myth that my late Grandfather would not have survived being a Japanese Prisoner of War had the atomic bombing of Hiroshima not occurred. So it could be argued that I owe my existence to one of the most terrifying events of human history and the death of 110,000 people."
Hetain Patel's practice took its beginnings from wanting to understand his Indian heritage. Not so much a factual historical timeline but rather through fighting the impossibility of being able to fully understand a mindset of a different context to the western one he was born and raised in.
To Dance Like Your Dad - In 1967 my father emigrated from India to the U.K. Since then he has never been back to India. This work begins an exploration of how much cultural memory a body can retain. Namely which of my father's physical traits can be attributed to being Indian and which are reflections of the British environment he has lived in for the last 43 years? Can I learn about being Indian by studying his vocal and body languages? Can one lose or gain Indian-ness?
Shorts and Panel Discussion 6th October 6.30pm
'The Cutting Room' present a series of short films exploring questions about our own personal and collective identities. Is it possible to be truly authentic? Does an authentic self exist?
Including an exclusive screening of David Blandy's new film "Child of the Atom" along side Hetain Patel's 'Dance Like Your Dad' and accompanying films from David Shrigley, Oriana Fox, Clare Harris, Jennifer Ross, Chambers Judd, Jon Burgerman and Multitouch Barcelona.
Following the screening will be a Q&A with Artist David Blandy and Hetain Patel opening up to a panel discussion.
