DOWSER, notes on artists moving image in Scotland is a chapbook series founded in 2020 and published by Transit Arts.
DOWSER features newly commissioned essays, interview transcripts and archival materials, making available a collated set of resources from which we might begin to plot a history of artists’ moving image in Scotland. DOWSER is a non-profit project. Each chapbook is released as an open access online PDF and in a limited print edition.
ISSN 2634-7083 (Print)
ISSN 2634-7091 (Online)
Stockists
Transit Arts (Online)Good Press, Glasgow, UK
LUX Moving Image, London, UK
Public House, Birmingham, UK
Blue Flower Texts, Ōtautahi, Aotearoa / Christchurch, New Zealand
Libraries
Glasgow Zine Library, UKBFI Reuben Library, London, UK
British Library, London, UK
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK
Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK
Cambridge University, UK
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK
4.
Intermission
All sales of issues 1–7 are inclusive of a minimum £2.00 donation to the Scottish Refugee Council (Registered Charity: SC008639). Since launching, DOWSER has raised over £1,250GBP (as of December 2021).
1.
These are the stones we have instead of trees
Helen Nisbet
Summer 2020
DOWSER Issue 1 (Summer 2020) features curator Helen Nisbet’s “These are the stones we have instead of trees.” Borrowing its title from the pioneering filmmaker and poet Margaret Tait’s ‘The Scale of Things’ (1960), this new essay provides something of a prologue for the series. A Shetlander now based in London, Nisbet draws upon her own staggered migrations south in order to articulate an account of how place manifests in a person.
Helen Nisbet is Artistic Director for Art Night and curates projects across the UK. She sits on the Acquisitions Committee for the Arts Council Collection and the Advisory Board for Art Quest and a-n.
DOWSER is a non-profit project. This chapbook is released as an open access online PDF and in a limited print edition of 200. These printed versions will be available for a contribution of £2.50, inclusive of a minimum £2.00 donation to the Scottish Refugee Council (Registered Charity: SC008639).
Issues 1 & 2 of DOWSER have been made possible by the generous support of The Glasgow School of Art and the British Art Network, through their Early Career Curator Group research bursary. The British Art Network is jointly led by Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, with additional public funding provided by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Margaret Tait, Happy Bees, 1954. Courtesy of the Margaret Tait estate and LUX, London.
2.
Circuits, Reels and Actions: Artists’ Moving Image in 1970s Edinburgh
Adam Lockhart
Autumn 2020
DOWSER Issue 2 (Autumn 2020) features media archivist and researcher Adam Lockhart’s new essay “Circuits, Reels and Actions: Artists’ Moving Image in 1970s Edinburgh.” At the outset of cultural devolution in the 1970s, helmed by determined promoters like enfant terrible Richard Demarco and the staff of the nascent Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh became the original seat of an avant-garde in Scotland. This new essay maps a series of key turns in this decade, offering a set of historical fieldnotes for further study and celebration. The issue is illustrated in full colour by a number of archival photographs, including some previously unpublished images from the Demarco Digital Archive.
Adam Lockhart is a leading specialist and researcher in the conservation, preservation, restoration and re-exhibition of artists’ video. He is a lecturer in Media Collections & Archives at DJCAD, University of Dundee.
DOWSER is a non-profit project. This chapbook is released as an open access online PDF and in a limited print edition of 200. These printed versions will be available for a contribution of £2.50, inclusive of a minimum £2.00 donation to the Scottish Refugee Council (Registered Charity: SC008639).
Issues 1 & 2 of DOWSER have been made possible by the generous support of The Glasgow School of Art and the British Art Network, through their Early Career Curator Group research bursary. The British Art Network is jointly led by Tate and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, with additional public funding provided by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Paul Neagu, Going Tornado performance for Grampian TV Production “Images,” production still, Aberdeen, 1974. Courtesy of Demarco European Art Foundation & Demarco Digital Archive, University of Dundee.
3.
Jugalbandi
Jasleen Kaur and Alia Syed
Winter 2020/2021
DOWSER Issue 3 (Winter 2020/2021) features artist-filmmakers Jasleen Kaur and Alia Syed’s “Jugalbandi.” A special tête-bêche double issue, two entwined texts respond to the shared experience of growing up Scottish and South Asian in Glasgow. Departing from each other’s moving image practice, they express the pain of desiring to find oneself in a culture whose colonial campaign has sought to flatten and petrify. Rhythm, lyric and voice are offered as tools for private resistance, for spell-breaking.
Jasleen Kaur was born in Glasgow and is now based in London. Her practice examines diasporic identity and hierarchies of history, both colonial and personal. She works with sculpture, video and writing.
Alia Syed was born in Wales and lives in London. She has been making films in the UK for over 25 years. Syed’s unique approach sutures different subject positions in relation to culture, diaspora and location.
DOWSER is a non-profit project. This chapbook is released as an open access online PDF and in a limited print edition of 250. These printed versions are available for a contribution of £2.50, inclusive of a minimum £2.00 donation to the Scottish Refugee Council (Registered Charity: SC008639).
Issue 3 has been made possible with support from Alchemy Film & Arts. The release of this double issue coincides with If you know, you know (18–21 February 2021), an online screening of work made in Scotland between 1970 and 2020, available as part of Continue Watching.
Jasleen Kaur, Ethnoresidue, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
4.
A Persistent Vision
Lesley Keen
Spring 2021
DOWSER Issue 4 (Spring 2021) profiles the work of the experimental animator Lesley Keen and her production company Persistent Vision (1982–1999). From her studio in Glasgow, Keen navigated the field of broadcast television in the early days of Channel 4 to produce a body of work steeped in histories of visual culture, mythology, spirituality and the unconscious mind. Characterised by the flow of luminous lines, Keen’s highly individual work has explored many aspects of non-narrative filmmaking, wherein animation provides a means of describing concepts that could not be otherwise visualised.
This issue comprises a new interview with Keen, reflecting candidly on her experience of Scotland’s production environment in the 1980s. It also includes excerpts of an essay by Keen on the techniques and theories employed in her analogue work, originally published within a companion volume to the animation Taking a Line for a Walk (1983). The issue is generously illustrated with a selection of production artwork, film stills and photography from Keen’s personal archive.
DOWSER is a non-profit project. This chapbook is released as an open access online PDF and in a limited print edition of 200. These printed versions are available for a contribution of £2.50, inclusive of a minimum £2.00 donation to the Scottish Refugee Council (Registered Charity: SC008639).
Issue 4 has been made possible with the support of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities’ Engagement Funding.
Lesley Keen, Invocation, 1984. Courtesy of the artist.