Jordan BASEMAN

Profile

Graduated from Tyler School of Art,
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania U.S.A in 1983, and
Goldsmiths College, University of London in 1988.

Recent activities:
Solo Exhibitions/Screenings
2011 - Nasty Piece of Stuff, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Aberdeen
2010 - The Most Powerful Weapon in this World, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
2010 - Nature's Great Experiment, Modern Art Oxford and Catalyst Arts, Belfast
Screening:
2011 - London Independent Film Festival, London
2010 - Los Angeles Animation Festival, California
2010 - San Francisco International Short Film Festival, California

Other activities and awards:
2011 - Cosmic Noise, Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England
2011 - Artist in Residence, St. John's College, University of Oxford
2010 - Rough Machine Commission, Animate Projects, London
2010 - Best Film (Dangerous Experiments), Los Angeles Animation Festival
2010 - Best International Short Film, Melbourne Underground Film Festival
2009 - 2010 - Identity Project Award, Nature's Great Experiment, Wellcome Trust
2009 - Blue Movie, Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, Henry Moore Foundation and Matt's Gallery London
2009 - Commonwealth Suite, a hypnotic effect, Collective, Edinburgh
2008 - 2009 - dark is the night, ArtSway and Photographers' Gallery, London

About works / performance

Visual abstraction, within a moving image context, is something that I have been increasingly interested in trying to manufacture. My project for the TWS Creator in Residence Program, titled: abusutorakushon (Japanese for abstraction) will reflect this.
My interest in relinquishing the boundaries of control within a process of moving image-making is really a celebration of the collision between representation and abstraction through recording and process. Recently, I have begun to hand-process color 16mm film, using basic chemicals and buckets in a simple but totally blacked out space. This process encourages visual breakdown, fragmentation and distortion - really pushing the unpredictable nature of the materiality of film itself at its most fundamental level. As the surface of the emulsion on the negative is intentionally physically punctured, torn and damaged through this most basic of developing processes, the resulting films are flecked with scratches and streaked with black scars: holes where images used to be.