Walking After Acconci (Redirected Approaches) references a seminal video work made in 1973 by Vito Acconci. In it, Acconci paces the length of a corridor, talking to an absent ex-lover. Forsyth and Pollard worked closely with Plan B a sharp-tongued young urban MC signed to 679 Recordings, to update the script and re-shoot the video, liberally adopting the style and aesthetic of contemporary urban music videos.

The resulting film is a combination of reconstruction and revision, a double-take, a superimposition paralleling two eras, two forms of cultural expression and two dialogues; the dialogue with the Acconci piece and the dialogue with the camera – the viewer, you. The piece was filmed in one 24minute take, with a single, static camera. Forsyth and Pollard then took the footage to Rushes in Soho, London to work with award-winning colourist Marcus Timpson on grading the look of the image to achieve the feel of a contemporary urban music video.

Marie-Anne McQuay, 2005

Inspired by the musical tradition of the ‘response record’, the new film, Walking Over Acconci (Misdirected Reproaches), gives voice to the other side of the story. Like Smokey Robinson’s ‘Got a Job’ in response to the Silhouette’s 1958 hit ‘Get a Job’, or the song feud between Neil Young’s ‘Southern Man’ and Lynyrd Skynrd’s ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, there is a fluid space of myth and rumor that moves between each narrative. Working with young female electro MC Miss Odd Kidd, Walking Over Acconci similarly draws on Acconci’s original to create a new, stand alone work, while also providing its own direct, razor sharp rebuttal to Plan B’s previous claims. In its confrontation—complicit with and completed by you, the viewer—the film extends beyond the re-make to create its own performative genealogy.

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard Biography

Iain Forsyth was born in 1973 in Manchester, Jane Pollard was born in 1972 in Newcastle. They live and work in London. Forsyth & Pollard are artists and BAFTA nominated directors working across film, installation, performance, sound, documentary and TV drama. Working collaboratively since meeting at Goldsmiths in the mid-nineties, their work has been exhibited around the world and is collected by museums and institutions including Tate at the British Government Art Collection. Their debut feature film, 20,000 Days on Earth, won two awards at Sundance and nominations from BAFTA and the Independent Spirit Awards. In 2015, Iain & Jane received the Douglas Hickox Award for best debut director from the British Independent Film Awards.

Iain & Jane were nominated for the Samsung Art+ Prize in 2012 and the Jarman Award in 2014. They were selected for New Contemporaries in 1997. A major retrospective of their work was presented at South London Gallery in 2011. Art commissions include BBC Radio, the Great North Run, BFI Gallery and the City of Toronto, who commissioned their first major outdoor public work in 2011. Other solo exhibitions include Requiem for 114 Radios, Colston Hall Bristol; Bish Bosch: Ambisymphonic (with Scott Walker), Sydney Opera House and Silent Sound, A Foundation, Liverpool.

See more about them at their website

They are represented by Kate MacGarry

Acknowledgements

Void Gallery is supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Derry City Council.