Wednesday 31 August 2011

Blow Up at the V2: ‘Every Artist, a Journalist’



Earlier this month the V2 Institute for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam staged an event provocatively titled ‘Every Artist, a Journalist’ – a concept whose implications are not entirely alien to this blog, although journalism by its very nature is incapable of adopting the kind of longer perspectives required for an actual change of mind. Taking part alongside Lino Hellings and Alfredo Cramerotti was Gair Dunlop, whose film study of life around the Dounreay reactors Atom Town was recently screened at the Arts Catalyst Studio in London. Click here to watch a fascinating video of the Dunlop, Hellings and Cramerotti in conversation on the subject of aesthetics and reportage, secrets and reality in an exchange that was originally broadcast live via the V2 website.

To accompany the release of Atom Town, I wrote a short essay on the subject of nuclear architecture, both cinematic and institutional, that was subsequently published in a handsome foldout brochure available at screenings. This essay, ‘Temporary Storage: Notes on the Dounreay Fast Reactor, Citadel of the Future’ has now been included in a special V2 e-reader, alongside contributions from Alfredo Cramerotti, Michelle Kasprzak, Mark Nash and Alexei Shulgin, available for download for free in various formats (MOBI, Kindle etc), including PDF. Meanwhile a PDF of the original film brochure, featuring Gair Dunlop’s gorgeous post-atomic photographic studies of the Dounreay interior, can still be had simply by clicking here. This has been a public service announcement – now clear the halls and go about your business in a quiet and orderly manner.

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