Premiere of Jordan Baseman’s film Green Lady and launch of the publication 1973.

1973 is a text and image based extension of Jordan Baseman’s creative non-fiction, interview-based practice: mimicking the process through which Baseman creates the spoken-word narrative soundtracks for his films.

1973 has been developed and produced alongside Baseman’s 2011 residency at St. John’s College, University of Oxford, during which he also made the film Green Lady. Using 16mm film and in-camera motion techniques, Baseman experiments by relinquishing the boundaries of control within a process of image making, celebrating the collision of representation and abstraction.

For this publication Baseman has interviewed the cultural commentators Pamela Church Gibson, Jonathan Griffin and Trish Lyons, documenting their experiences and thoughts in response to Green Lady. Their interviews have since been edited into narratives, soundtracks for hypothetical, never-to-be-made films. These texts are not critical essays, nor commissioned creative texts. They are manufactured prose derived directly from the interview process and each participant’s experiences.

Green Lady and 1973 are thematically linked: dealing with ideas and experiences surrounding the Afterlife, pixies, the paranormal, ghosts, Houdini, Michael Jackson, The White Lady of Barnet and the recently deceased Green Lady of Oxford. A transcript from the film Green Lady accompanies and contextualizes these texts.

Text contributor biographies:

Dr Patricia Lyons

Dr. P G Lyons is Senior Lecturer in Research at the Royal College of Art, London. Patricia critiques and lectures on current art practice and is especially interested in the way artists interact with materials and concepts.

Pamela Church Gibson

Pamela Church Gibson is a Reader in Cultural and Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. Pamela has researched and written widely on the role of fashion and costume in film and has researched the links between film, fashion, fandom and the contemporary star system. Co-editor of Fashion Cultures(Routledge, 2000) andMore Dirty Looks: Gender, Pornography and Power (BFI, 2004), Pamela is now working on a book on fashion and celebrity, whilst also examining the relationship between cities, cinema, consumption and gender in the post-war period.

Jonathan Griffin

Jonathan Griffin is a freelance writer, critic, editor and curator. Born in London, he is currently based in Los Angeles. He contributes to a range of magazines including frieze, ArtReview, Flash Art, Mousse, Tank, Texte Zur Kunst, Manifesta Journal, Picpus, Tate Etc. and Wonderland. Between 2005 and 2009 he was Assistant Editor for Frieze magazine. He recently edited the book Grizedale Arts: Adding Complexity to Confusion (2009), and curated a project by Phillip Lai for 'No Soul For Sale' (2010) at Tate Modern.

1973 is further enhanced by the inclusion of 16 colour images created specifically by the artist for this project.

This project is generously supported by Arts Council England, St John’s College, Oxford and The University of Oxford