Q&A with Grace Weir
Can you tell me something about the general concept behind the 'Script' videos?
I was interested in the textuality of the written word within the context of film. The Script Series is a series of short films about writing words that are relevant to the filmed activity or make reference to filmic terms. Shot where I work, they take the form of filmic exercises of studio activity. The series explores the textuality of words whilst considering issues pertaining to film's specificity.
What for you is the 'division of labour' between image and text? How do they work differently within your practice?
I think and write visually. Text is something to be looked at as much as understood for its meaning.
What place does humour play in your artworks?
I see it as an element that creates a rupture in viewing and re-engages the viewer to take a closer look at the material and medium being presented. It's a way to break down preconditions.
Can you say something about what the word 'translation' means for you?
In Euclidean geometry, a translation is a function that moves every point a constant distance in a specified direction. A translation can also be interpreted as the addition of a constant vector to every point, or as shifting the origin of the coordinate system. The Cubists used the concept of translation to unfold the plane of the surface of a painting and reject the conventions of perspective and representation in painting. In looking at the idea of a constant vector moving from A to B and back again, Deleuze comes to mind: 'Between things does not designate a localizable relation going from one thing to the other and back again, but a perpendicular direction, a transversal movement that sweeps one and the other away, a stream without beginning or end that undermines its banks and picks up speed in the middle.'
