A short programme of artists’ films featuring a new performance by Amelia Crouch in dialogue with video works by Clare Charnley and James Richards, and 16mm films by Emily Wardill.

Made across two decades, the works share an interest in voice and the limitations of language. They explore ideas such as re-voicing words and memories that are not our own, the subjectivity inherent in various forms of observation – psychological, social, medical, and performative – and the distortion of human experience through technology and words.

Using video, live voice, and surround sound, Amelia Crouch’s new work recounts the heightened sensory experience of an MRI scan. In Speech Work (China), Clare Charnley creates a new piece from the documentation of a 2010 performance in which the artist surrenders her voice to an entirely foreign language. In Emily Wardill’s two earliest films from 2006, the viewer is triangulated by a focus group, a hypnotist, and a case study of paranoia, while James Richards’ 2015 work grapples with the anxiety and pleasure of seeing and sensing in an era saturated by technology.

Films:

There Clare Charnley (2010, 2 min, digital video)

Ben Emily Wardill (2007, 10 min, 16mm)

Basking in what feels like ‘An Ocean of Grace’ I soon realise that I am not looking at it but rather that I AM it, recognising myself Emily Wardill (2006, 7 min, 16mm)

I Asked If I Could Blink Amelia Crouch (2024, 6 min, live performance and digital video)

Speech Work (China) Clare Charnley (2010/2024, 12 min, digital video)

Radio at Night James Richards (2015, 8 min, digital video)