Ian Curtis Wishlist

This video was originally put together in 2008, destroyed in a apartment fire later that year, and now resurrected and rebuilt in 2012. The first cut of this video was very different to this the newest incarnation, with a lot more of Ian Curtis on stage and even him singing a few notes. I really liked the idea of a concert video stripped of the actual concert (band playing songs), and being a longstanding Joy Division fan was drawn to the one concert VHS I owned (Here are the young men). 

Please feel free to check it out at your leisure. Link to the video and description from my vimeo page below.




James Fritzgerald Craig's Farewell Video To Ian Kevin Curtis
[2008-2012]
Video, 15:06, Colour

As the title states, this work is meant to be a tongue in cheek and meaningful look at the late Ian Curtis through a dissection of the medium of concert videos.

Utilizing concert footage from late 1979 and early 1980, endings and beginnings of songs Ian Curtis’s band Joy Division are preforming merge into this 15-minute inversed concert video. As the music swells and the n abruptly shutters to a close, Ian and company filter in and out of the inky blackness of the stage never being allowed to break in to a full song or escape the crowds screams for more. 

Video Work from 2007.

Someone Else’s Girlfriend
[2007]
Video, 1:40, Colour

 “Someone Else’s Girlfriend” features heavily doctored and retouched found footage of an unknown person’s ex-girlfriend walking about on a beach.

Shawna Dempsey, from the 2008 Video Pool Catalogue:

"Using found and reprocessed old film footage, Craig creates a wistful portrait of an unknown woman walking into the water. The soundtrack is a remix of Beach Boys Mike Love and Brian Wilson talking in the studio while working on the album Pet Sounds.The title, the use of degraded Super 8 imagery and the unadorned vulnerability of the human voice combine to elicit memories of summers gone by. Memory revisited, memory revised, memory lost."




A Single Ray of Light on an otherwise cloudy day (A short reprise for Friedrich Nietzsche, who warned us of science, but for very good reasons)
[2007]
Video, 6:15, Colour

This work features digitized, recolored, and generally junked up footage of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. The doctored found footage which is shown in reverse is meant as an attempt to make it all better or at least draw attention to the issue of science for sciences sake alluded to in the title.

Video Work From 2005 to 2006:

What Defines Greatness
[2005]
Video, 7:15, Colour

Working from a statement by Friedrich Nietzsche that to be great you must be willing to inflict great pain and suffering, and rifting on the idea of the Übermensch; this video presents a heavily altered looping 1930’s cartoon of Superman being pummeled by a laser beam. Sound by Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline.








Sort of like a distilled and hushed version of all the landscape painting Gerhard Richter has done to date….
[2006]
Video, 3:16, Colour

As the title dictates this work is an ironic and meaningful approximation of Gerhard Richter’s landscape works. This work plays off found footage of a small stereotyped German town surrounded by forests. As music swells and the camera moves over the land the image gets progressively blurrier.

Video Work From 2003 to 2004:

     I have recently started a Vimeo account to make available to view some of my video and film work. Here are a sampling of works I made between 2003 and 2004. Others will be posted soon. Enjoy.  




Man/Machine 
[2003]
Video, 5:14, Colour


Using the German electronic band Kraftwerk’s song with the same title as a conceptual starting point this work presents the viewer with close up shots of moving parts of a bike in motion gliding in and out of street lamps during the night on the city of Winnipeg’s residential streets. This video is the first video work I consider part of my artistic practice (mature ?).





City of the Future
[2004]
Video, 6:20, Colour

This single channel video is an attempt at showing an abstraction of urban space. Utilizing atmospheric shots in and around the city of Winnipeg this work aspires to an ideal set by Jack Chambers in his 1970 film “The Hart of London”. Soundtrack is provided by Winnipeg based electronic artist 3x3is9.




It’s Terrible to be a Painter
[2004]
Video, 4:55, Colour

Showing the playback of a rewinding episode of a Bob Ross painting programme this video attempts at a dissection of the medium of video, and takes a melancholic view of the act of painting. Shot in one take.