Vivienne Dick: Three Films

Vivienne Dick was born in Donegal, Ireland in 1950 and studied at University College, Dublin. Between 1977 and 1982 she lived in New York, part of a group of filmmakers whose affiliation to the music and aesthetic of punk became known as ‘New Wave’. Dick returned to Ireland in 1982 and then to London in 1985, where she produced a number of films and videos. She now lives in Galway, Ireland, where she teaches and continues her practice.

Her films have been screened at cinemas, museums and film festivals internationally, including Tate Britain, Moma and the Whitney in New York. Her work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and Anthology Archives, NYC and the Irish Film Archives.

Guerillère Talks
Irland 1978
video fra Super8
24min

Fresh from Ireland and having no experience of making films, Vivienne Dick’s arrival in NYC landed her right in the middle of a punk revolution. This, her first film, uses eight rolls of Kodak sound Super-8 film to profile eight women in real time and without any editing. The «subjects» include Pat Place and Adele Bertei, former band members of the Contortions, as well as Lydia Lunch, singer, guitarist, film-star and punk doyenne who would also appear in later films.

London Suite (Getting Sucked In)
Storbritannia 1990
video fra 16mm
28min

London’s cultural diversity unfolds as Vivienne Dick portrays her friends, their lifestyles, what they talk about and how they talk. In this kaleidoscopic arrangement of encounters and re-enactments, equal weight is given to the passionate and the banal. The camera’s sudden hops from one reality to another and the disjointed conversations are drawn together by the musical score and the film’s internal rhythm.

Augenblick
Irland 2017
Video
14min

Augenblick reflects on what it means to be human in a post human world. A giant rock morphs into a mountain in a frozen landscape. Jean Jacques Rousseau speaks about man and his relationship to society. Three women of various ages announce a range of human beliefs from animism to our present accelerated digital world.