press release - New Exhibitions of Contemporary Art

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 2014

Jamie Shovlin: Hiker Meat 18 January – 21 April 2014 Sections of an exploitation film that never actually existed have been ‘re-made’ for the new exhibition at Cornerhouse - the biggest to date by conceptual artist Jamie Shovlin. The movie Hiker Meat, and its Italian director Jesus Rinzoli, have been imagined by Shovlin to represent archetypes of the exploitation film style, which boomed from the late 60s to the early 80s. Exploitation movies were low-budget feature films, usually considered to be of low moral or artistic merit. Their makers pursued financial success by ‘exploiting’ popular trends and lurid subject matter, including suggested or explicit sex, sensational violence , gore, ‘freaks’ and drug use. Jamie Shovlin collaborated with writer Mike Harte (of whose name ‘hiker meat’ is an anagram) and composer Euan Rodger to originally produce a full screenplay and soundtrack for the film - a classic slasher movie set in an American summer camp in the late 1970s. In 2009 he then created a prototype version of the film, by collaging over 1500 found clips from original exploitation movies. The beginning and end sections of this prototype, and a Hiker Meat trailer (available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_kS54uSM-Y), have now been recreated shot-by-shot, during filming by Cornerhouse Artist Film in the English Lake District in June 2013. With all effects authentically created by hand, these ‘re-filmed’ sections form the centrepiece of the Cornerhouse exhibition, which has been curated by Director of Programme and Engagement Sarah Perks. Perks explained: “The exhibition aims to capture the genesis of, and collaborative process of delivering, the Hiker Meat project. It opens with an old-school media museum installation about the Hiker Meat ‘film’, featuring costumes, memorabilia, maquettes of our 2013 set - and the remains of the real thing! Galleries two and three then reveal a wealth of Jamie and the team’s background thinking, processes and planning for the project. The Library Theatre Co, Cornerhouse and Cornerhouse Publications are trading names of Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd a co mpany limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales No: 1681278. Registered of f ice 70 Oxf ord Street Manchester M1 5NH. Charity No: 514719.

“The filmed sections of Hiker Meat, featuring such exploitation standards as a hitchhiking lead character with a troubled past, a charismatic commune leader with a secret master and a threatening, monstrous presence, take centre stage in the exhibition, alongside parallel footage of different stages of the production process - creating a truly immersive experience.” Jamie Shovlin said: “Although most exploitation films might rightly be considered poor in terms of form and motivation I can't help being inspired by the genre’s potential for very idiosyncratic output, and its disavowal of mainstream film distribution networks. Crucially, there was a striking spirit of collaboration and a 'can do' attitude towards film production and distribution which I sought to adopt on this project: people believing in an idea to the extent that they somehow make it happen, regardless of practicalities and funds.” Extending this collaborative approach, Shovlin, Cornerhouse Artist Film and TIFF have also produced a full feature film - a creative documentary about the re-making of Hiker Meat. Rough Cut combines the filmed Hiker Meat sections with fly-on-the-wall production footage and interviews with cast and crew. The film features in the 43rd International Film Festival Rotterdam in January 2014 as part of Signals: Regained - an annual strand which screens restored classics, forgotten masterpieces and films that centre on cinema itself. It will screen several times at Cornerhouse during the exhibition’s run. www.cornerhouse.org/artist-film-rough-cut Shovlin’s previous exhibitions have included drawings by an imagined missing schoolgirl, and memorabilia of the non-existent German glam rock band, Lustfaust. Hiker Meat originated as an imagined film for which Lustfaust had composed the soundtrack; it was first exhibited in its collaged version in 2010, with later exhibitions focusing on its imagined production and release. The Cornerhouse exhibition and film mark the realisation of the project, having enabled Shovlin to document the attempt to actually produce sequences he put together in collage form back in 2009. He said: “The ‘reproduction’ of the three key sequences has been the false heart of the entire enterprise. To create the material I wanted for this exhibition, and the film Rough Cut, there had to be an absolutely genuine attempt at achieving our goals; the resulting sequences, and footage of our attempts to capture them, are now fundamental to the Hiker Meat project’s wider context.” - ENDS Jamie Shovlin: Hiker Meat Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester M1 5NH, UK 18 January – 21 April 2014, Free Tue – Sat: 12.00 – 20.00, Sun: 12.00 – 18.00 (closed Mon) Visitor information: 0161 200 1500 / www.cornerhouse.org

www.cornerhouse.org/hiker-meat Notes for e ditors Key exhibition activities

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Special launch event: Creature Close-up with Kev Thornton: Fri 17 Jan, 17:30 – 18:00. Free, limited availability, first come, first served. In this exclusive talk, prop-maker Kev Thornton will discuss the puppeteer-controlled B-movie monster he created for Hiker Meat. The first 40 attendees will receive a Polaroid-type print of themselves with the monster. Exhibition launch: Fri 17 Jan, 18.00 – 20.00. Free, drop in, all welcome. Artist tour and talk with Jamie Shovlin: Sat 18 Jan, 13.00. Free but booking required.

The Library Theatre Co, Cornerhouse and Cornerhouse Publications are trading names of Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd a co mpany limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales No: 1681278. Registered of f ice 70 Oxf ord Street Manchester M1 5NH. Charity No: 514719.

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One Hour Intro - Exploitation Cinema: Sat 18 Jan, 15:00 – 16:00 (£4 full / £3 concs). This session by Andy Willis, Reader in Film Studies at the University of Salford, will introduce the world of exploitation cinema and ask, what exactly is an exploitation film? All-night exploitation film ‘Sleazeathon’: Sat 18 Jan, 21.00 – Sun 19 Jan 2014, 9.00am. (film details: www.cornerhouse.org/sleazeathon, three- and six-film packages available). Followed by Breakfast with CP Lee: Cliff Twemlow: The man, the myth, the magic, a discussion of the Manchester exploitation filmmaker Screenings of Rough Cut: Tue 21 Jan, 18:30; Sat 1 Feb, 16:20; Tue 4 Mar, 13:40; Sat 29 Mar, 18:30 Discussion: The Cultural Politics of Exploitation Cinema: Sat 1 Mar, 15:00 - 16:30 (£4 full / £3 concs)

Jamie Shovlin and Sarah Perks are available for interview. For further information or images or to arrange interviews please contact Jo Nightingale: [email protected] / + 44 (0)161 200 1529 / +44 (0)7776 208302 About Jamie Shovlin Jamie Shovlin is interested in the tension between truth and fiction, reality and invention, history and memory. His projects are long-term engagements, with painstaking research applied to working practices that are specific to each project and its focus. Artificial distancing mechanisms are employed within work that seeks to confound and subjugate the role of author, originator and practitioner. These often take the form of literary or filmic traditions including unreliable narration, alternate realities, multiple accounts of the same event, and meta-commentary. His work attempts to merge inherently flawed syst ems, pseudoscientific exactitude and doubtful philosophical propositions with the seemingly objective experience of the archive. Jamie Shovlin studied at the Royal College of Art. Solo exhibitions include Various Arrangements at Haunch of Venison, London (2012), Thy Will Be Done at Tullie House, Carlisle (2011), Hik er Meat at MACRO, Rome (2010) and In Search of Perfect Harmony at Tate Britain, London (2006). About Sarah Perks, curator Sarah has worked at Cornerhouse for over a decade, producing a full-time specialised film programme (including festivals), up to eight contemporary visual art exhibitions annually, and major engagement projects including Micro Commissions (seed funding for innovative new ideas) and award-winning young people’s projects Projector and LiveWire. Sarah has produced a number of visual arts shows exploring international socio-political conflict, including the ground-breaking survey Contemporary Art Iraq and 2013’s major group exhibition Anguish and Enthusiasm, What Do You Do With Your Revolution Once You’ve Got It?

She has co-curated

several major solo exhibitions including leading Pakistan-based artist Rashid Rana’s Everything is Happening at Once and Los Angeles performance and video artist Stanya Kahn’s It’s Cool I’m Good, both with published catalogues. Sarah leads Cornerhouse Artist Film (see below) and was an executive producer on Jeremy Deller’s Procession (with Manchester International Festival) and Marxism Today (prologue) with Phil Collins.


About the film Rough Cut Unique new feature film Rough Cut, directed by Jamie Shovlin, explores the making of the gloriously sleazy Hik er Meat - an imagined 1970s exploitation flick by (fictitious) Italian director Jesus Rinzoli. It has been produced by Cornerhouse Artist Film and will be released across the UK on 6 December. Rough Cut is the first in-house production by Cornerhouse Artist Film, the innovative artist film production and distribution unit established by Cornerhouse, Manchester’s international centre for contemporary visual art and independent film. It has been produced by Mancunians Bren O’Callaghan and Marisa Draper and the Hiker Meat sections feature supporting appearances by local people - around a quarter of whom were recruited via an open call on Cornerhouse’s website. Rough Cut GB 2013, 90 minutes Director: Jamie Shovlin, Producer: Bren O’Callaghan, Assistant Producer: Marisa Draper www.cornerhouse.org/rough-cut About Cornerhouse Artist Film Cornerhouse Artist Film is a unique project that links up production, distribution, exhibition and audience development for feature films by visual artists. It combines artists’ features with cross-media commissions - including performances and art gallery installations - as well as giving them a traditional theatrical release, VOD and DVD/Blu-ray. Its dual edition DVD/Blu-rays also harness the expertise of Cornerhouse Publications, its sister visual art book distributor, to reach museum and gallery audiences and online specialists. Established in 2011, Cornerhouse Artist Film’s first release was Self Made, by Turner Prize-winning artist Gillian Wearing.

Its second film, Swandown by Andrew Kotting, was selected for the ACID 20th

Anniversary selection at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. 35mm

Subconscious

Society

and

Jamie

Shovlin’s

Its first in-house productions, Rosa Barba’s Rough

Cut,

are currently

in production.

www.cornerhouse.org/artist-film About Cornerhouse Cornerhouse is Greater Manchester’s centre for international contemporary visual art and film. It is a place where all can engage with contemporary ideas, through a unique, risk -taking, cross art-form and culturally diverse programme of high quality art and film. In copy please refer to ‘Cornerhouse’ and not ‘The Cornerhouse’. www.cornerhouse.org About HOME In 2015 a new centre for contemporary art, theatre, film and books will open its doors in Manchester. It will be called HOME, and is the product of the merger of two of Manchester’s best-loved arts institutions: Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company. HOME’s new building will include a 500-seat theatre, a 150-seat flexible studio space, a 500m², four metre-high gallery space, five cinema screens, education spaces, digital production and broadcast facilities, a café bar, a restaurant and offices. It will provide new opportunities for artists and audiences to The Library Theatre Co, Cornerhouse and Cornerhouse Publications are trading names of Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd a co mpany limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales No: 1681278. Registered of f ice 70 Oxf ord Street Manchester M1 5NH. Charity No: 514719.

create work in different ways together and serve as a social and cultural hub; in one building visitors will be able to see original new work across the visual arts, theatre and film. HOME will be located in a lively new development at First Street, just off Whitworth Street, which will include a public square ideal for events, activities and performances. It will anchor the development of a dynamic creative quarter for Manchester, which draws together creative energy emerging from Knott Mill to the west and the Palace Theatre to the east. HOME will change the cultural landscape of the city and the region, and have positive impacts nationally and beyond. www.HOMEmcr.org
