The LFMC film workshop
#8 The London Filmmakers Co-op’s film workshop Ben Yahya, an American student at the London School of Film Technique, then in Covent Garden, only gets one line in my book, but his energy was an important factor in the LFMCo-op workshop’s early days. In a letter he wrote to the obscure film mag fiba actualité […]
More on TVX
#7 More on TVX: Britain’s first video workshop Hoppy’s video workshop TVX at the Robert Street Lab was the first of its kind in the UK. TVX’s history has been documented by both the REWIND project at Dundee University, and in detail by scholar Ed Webb-Ingall in his excellent blogs on the LUX website. The TVX studio often seemed a world […]
On Soft and Hard Cinema
#6 Soft Cinema and Hard cinema: It can be argued that there is too much about the cinema in my book. I was so determined to document my attempts to establish a repertory of artists’ films and a showcase for the new, and to establish an audience for it, that I probably overwhelm with detail. […]
On being at the front desk
#5 On being at the front desk The public face of the Labs was that of the many people who tended the front desk, selling memberships, tickets, magazines and books, and offering information about ‘what’s on tonight’. So here are a few reminiscences by some of these important workers that failed to make it into […]
Further thoughts on Arts Labs exhibitions
#4 Further thoughts on Arts Labs exhibitions; Biddy Peppin – who with Pamela Zoline organised exhibitions at both Labs, remembers Jeff Nuttall’s show at Drury Lane, and comments on other Lab exhibitions: “Opposition to the ‘established’ gallery world was fundamental to Arts Lab exhibitions, and in July 1968 Jeff Nuttall showed works that chimed […]
The Labs’ Theatres
#3 The Labs’ Theatres ‘Warehouse theatre’ v ‘Cybernetic Theatre’ The theatre group the People Show were regulars at both Lab theatres. In his book Performance Art Memoirs (John Calder, 1979) Jeff Nuttall recalls how deliberately provocative were the People Shows he scripted: ‘A Nice Quiet Night was the show in which Laura [Gilbert] – hung […]
About Robert Street
#2 About the Robert Street New Arts Lab (IRAT): Facade of the Robert Street New Arts Lab The Robert Street ‘New Arts Lab’ was housed in a short-life building offered to us by Camden Council, at a peppercorn rent and rates. It was big, very cold in winter, and was rather too far from the […]
About Drury Lane
#1 About Drury Lane Jazz poet Ted Joans (right) with Jim Haynes and an unidentified friend outside 182 Drury Lane photographed in the Lab’s opening week. [Napier archive collection] Jim Haynes, notionally the originator of the Lab idea, offered this definition of ‘An Arts Lab’s purpose’, paradoxically published in the Arts Labs Newsletter and IT […]
