Artists' Film Club: Rachel Reupke

Artists' Film Club is proud to present the London premiere of Rachel Reupke’s recent work 10 Seconds or Greater.

Rachel Reupke works primarily with video. Her most recent films focus on universal concerns - happiness, health, cash flow, social status. Examined through the language of commercial image production, these commonplace yet personal obsessions are uncovered and exploited with differing degrees of visibility. The mediation of experience through technology, for entertainment or otherwise, is another thread that runs through the work. Webcams, camera obscura and cinematic special effects have all acted as formal starting points for more poetic narratives.

Formally based on the production of royalty-free stock footage, 10 Seconds or Greater maps the logical progression of a director through a check list of popular scenarios designed to illustrate such commercially lucrative concepts as 'communication', 'relaxation' and 'healthy life-style'.

Four young actors, two women and two men, good-looking, slim and sensibly dressed, perform a series of domestic rituals in their ready furnished new build apartment. From shot to shot, drinking red wine, preparing food, using wireless technology and working out, progressive variations in role and nuance of social convention are played out, while superficially mirroring contemporary trends and popular symbols of personal and professional success.

Compiled as an 'assembly edit', long fluid camera movements remain whole, leaving visible all available material. The result is a film whose attention wanders between action and art direction, laying equal emphasis on props, performance, emotional and technical content.

10 Seconds or Greater was commissioned by Picture This and Film London Artists' Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) as part of the Bristol Mean Time Residency.

Rachel Reupke (b.1971) lives in London. Recent exhibitions include 10 Seconds or Greater, Picture This, Bristol; Cinema Sim, Instituto Itaú Cultural, Sao Paulo and Come and Go: Fiction and Reality, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon. Her work has been screened at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern, London; the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

After the screening Rachel will discuss the work with writer Marina Vishmidt.