Last Wednesday was Short Circuits night at the Common Room, upstairs at The Forum in Sheffield's Division Street. I walked in to the bar's cavernous interior, hunted around the pool tables and past the couples in their smart casual clothing, watching boxing on multiple flat screens, until I finally stumbled upon a more rag-tag bunch hidden away in a dark alcove, watching a series of short films made by local artists and film-makers.
There were around 20 pieces on show, ranging from around one minute to five minutes in length, with short breaks every few films during which music played along to live video mixing and we were treated to one or two performances. A highlight of the night was the live show by WebsterGotts – two near-naked men (Alexis Gotts and Scott Webster) dressed only in large cardboard y-fronts, a forest of fake pubes hanging underneath. They stood, impassive, smoking cigarettes and holding pints of beer while a brass band version of Bohemian Rhapsody played over the PA. When it reached its near-climactic "guitar solo" both men lifted their pints to their lips and tipped them back, glugging the lot over the length of the solo. Glasses down on the table, they returned to making only the most understated of movements, puffing on cigarettes and staring into space. As the last breaths of the song played out, the two took one final drag and exhaled over the last lingering note. The whole thing was inspired, and reminded me of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer at their surreal best.
Back to the films – here are some of my favourites:
- David Shrigley and Chris Sheperd's Who I Am What I Want, a disturbing and funny animation about a savage boy whose name is muck and who just is who he is; voiceover by the legendary Kevin Eldon.
- Aqua Gym by Simon Green, is a film of two synchronised swimmers but filmed from underwater, and often turned upside-down, so that it looked as though we were watching two women balancing upon water. The film began with a quote from Diane Arbus: "Nothing is the same as they said it was. It's what I've never seen before I recognise". Echoing the quote, the action in the film was simultaneously familiar and alien.
- Forget Me Not 3 by Trine Lise Nedreaas showed an old man eating a plateful of mini-frankfurters (around 30 of them) in a little over a minute. The expressions on his face, especially the pleasure on finishing his task, were beautiful to behold, as was the photographic style of this fixed-camera piece.
- All the time in the world? by Semiconductor combined sounds from the British Geological survey with cleverly animated photographs of the Northumbria landscape which made it seem as though the earth was breathing, pulsating, its heart beating with the passing of aeons.
- The Pitch by Mark Lewis was a pitch, spoken by the arist (I presume), proposing a film with no leading roles, where the stars are the extras. The film started out as a head shot, and panned out over the course of its four minutes. The speaker was standing in what seemed to be a busy station (Liverpool Street?) and all around him people bustled, their various activities both distracting from and adding to the significance of his speech.
Once the films were finished, Hotsnack set up and played a set of largely improvised music which regularly broke down (broke up?) into a repetitive troll-like marching rhythym. The band members stalked the stage in masks, hats and enormous beards, while snatches of film, orchestrated by Edwin Rostron, continued to play on the large projection screen behind them, making the performance as visually exciting as it was aurally. When they finished, the band packed up as the film continued, scenes from a variety of bizarre fetish movies which showed, among other things, scantily-clad women pouring baked beans over one another's feet and then licking them off.
Finally, I headed downstairs to The Forum in time for two songs by local band Monkey Swallows the Universe, and then trolled home myself. There is a full set of photos from this night here.
