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nine nine nine nine nine [2017]

7 min, 50 sec. Single channel film, 16mm film transferred to digital, colour, stereo / / film credits, exhibitions and screenings here >

nine nine nine nine nine amalgamates archival and recent 16mm footage filmed inside 53 Beck Road, one of several on a road of terraced houses in Hackney intended for demolition by the Greater London Council in the late 1970s. Many of these houses were subsequently managed by artists’ studio provider ACME, as a housing and working solution for artists. The film is based on the accounts of the artists living in the house: Kieran Lyons [resident 1978 - 1986], and Karen and Peter Bunting [residents 1986 - to date], who describe the initial absence of floorboards, which had been burnt by previous tenants and squatters; an ‘asset stripping’ that resonates with current Neo-Liberal political practices. ‘nine nine nine nine nine’ takes its title from a line in The Clash’s ‘London’s Burning’ [1977], and evokes the contemporary housing crisis pitted against the agency of community and domestic collectivity. Missing architectural features and the domestic void are drawn into a reflection on history and power, and the ‘new religions’ haunting society then and now.

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Image: Frances Scott, 'nine nine nine nine nine' [2017], film still