Driftwood, House & Garage, Jungle, 1999 - 2000
Betacam SP, PAL, couleur, son
In 2001, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph attracted the attention of English critics with a trilogy of mid-length films: Driftwood, House and Garage and Jungle, each lasting around thirty minutes. They form a group of works known under the name The Essential Selection, which brings a militant and occasionally satirical gaze to bear on contemporary English culture. These three videos are unified by the singular style of their directors. Oliver Payne and Nick Relph fuse various genres of animated images together, ranging from documentary to video surveillance sequences, or a personal video diary – all harmonised by the narration, a voiceover and a musical soundtrack. The documentary approach underpinning these videos is nonetheless counterbalanced by the artists’ subjective and critical commentary.
Driftwood [1], starting with a scathing “Nobody knows London”, consists of artists’ observations about architecture and public spaces in London, while presenting a brief social history of certain sites in the city (South Bank, Oxford Street, Hyde Park, etc). The narrator’s strolls through the city lead him to paint a portrait of London, in which the chaos of cultural contradictions reigns (installation of barriers that aim to prevent the homeless from sleeping on benches, perpetual confrontations between skateboarders and architects, etc). Driftwood is intended as a tribute to the film London by Patrick Keiller (1994) that also presents the English capital through the eyes of its narrator. [2]
With House and Garage, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph are interested in the suburbs of London, where they grew up in the 1980s. The title makes reference not only to the suburbs with detached houses (where each home is equipped with a garage), but also to the musical style of the same name that was developing at that time. The narrative structure of Driftwood disappears in favour of a collage of images filmed in 16mm and Super 8, music, and spoken texts.
Jungle is a nocturnal exploration of English nature. This third part seems to be the diametric opposite of Driftwood, by shifting the spectator’s attention into the countryside of Devon and the superstitious rites surrounding it (UFOs, crop circles, etc). In order to complete this trilogy focused on life, which is sometimes dull, the young Londoners Oliver Payne and Nick Relph wanted “to explore the country and widen our lens as it were”. [3]
Géraldine Mercier
Translated by Anna Knight
[1] The term “driftwood” corresponds here to the material used to create skateboards.
[2] Oliver Payne: “Driftwood stems directly from wanting to make a homage to Patrick Keiller’s London. We wanted to ape his technique but discuss something we had an intimate knowledge of: skateboarding.” Interview on line: www.theblowup.com/nickoliver
[3] Oliver Payne, Ibid.