graduate school directory 2011/12 - Camberwell College of Arts ...

96 BASEMAN Jordan
BASEMAN Jordan
READER
BiOgrAPhY Jordan Baseman is a visual artist
and filmmaker. He received a BFA from Tyler
School of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and
an MA from Goldsmith’s College, University of
London. Baseman is currently Reader in Time-
Based Media at Wimbledon College of Art, University
of the Arts London, and is also a Lecturer
at the Royal College of Art Sculpture School and
The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University
of Oxford. Jordan is currently the Artist
in Residence Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford.
rESEArCh StAtEMENt My most recent work
is a synthesis of reportage, portraiture, documentary,
creative non-fiction and narrative practices.
I work with and record people, in order to
produce films that have the interview and editing
process at their core. Oral history, first person
spoken-word narratives, field recordings and
recorded inter views are all of great interest to me.
My films seek to entertain, to emotionally
engage and to challenge audiences. Although the
work is placed within a fine art context and
positioned within academic research culture, I do
not feel that it is restricted to those environments
and to those debates alone. It is of the utmost
importance to me that my work does not operate
exclusively within those realms and solely
for those audiences.
Narration, storytelling, personal experience
and belief interest me a great deal. The unpredictability
of the interview situation excites me.
In my films, speculation, opinion, ideas and anecdotes
are often interwoven with intimate
experiences of empirical, known information.
Visual abstraction, within a moving image
context, is something that I have been increas-
ingly interested in trying to manufacture.
In addition, I have been hand-processing colour
16mm film, using buckets in a simple but
totally blacked-out space, in order to encourage
visual breakdown, fragmentation and distor-
tion, and to really push the unpredictable nature
of the materiality of film itself at its most
fundamental level. This direction in my practice
reflects my interest in relinquishing the
boundaries of control within a process of imagemaking:
celebrating the collision of representation
and abstraction through process.
rECENt rELEVANt OUtPUtS In the past few
years, Jordan Baseman has presented solo exhibitions
at Matt’s Gallery, London; The Photographers’
Gallery, London; ArtSway, Hampshire;
Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead;
Monash University, Melbourne; Wellcome
Collection, London; Aberdeen Art Gallery; and
Collective Gallery, Edinburgh.
His films have recently featured in exhibitions
and film festivals including 53rd Venice Biennale;
Los Angeles Animation Festival (where he
won Best Film in the Dangerous Experiments
category); San Francisco Short Film Festival;
Melbourne Underground Film Festival (where he
won Best International Short Film); Tatton
Park Biennial; Gstaad Film Festival; and London
Short Film Festival.
Jordan Baseman has received grants from Arts
Council England; The Arts & Humanities
Research Council; The British Council; The Henry
Moore Foundation; The Wellcome Trust; and
London Arts Board. He has exhibited and screened
his work internationally in many countries
including Australia, USA, Austria, Germany, Japan,
Portugal, France and Italy.
Jordan Baseman, 1973, 16mm film production still, 2011
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