Ian Breakwell
Directing
Biography
Ian Breakwell was a British artist, active as a diarist, a draughtsman, a film-maker, a painter, a photographer and a print-maker.
Known For
Repertory consists of one continuous tracking shot, during which the camera completely circles the outside of a locked and empty theatre, whilst a voice describes a three week programme of daily ‘imagined presentations’ inside the theatre.
Repertory
Directed by Ian Breakwell.
Variety
Developed from Ian's published diaries these short works provide an objective, compassionate, often humorous and bizarre view of events that happen around us daily. Commissioned by Channel Four and made in collaboration with independent producer Anna Ridley, this series of short pieces were broadcast over a six week period in April and May 1984.
Ian Breakwell's Continuous Diary
Directed by Ian Breakwell
Growth
Art film part of the REWIND + PLAY, An Anthology of Early British Video Art box-set.
In the Home
Directed by Ian Breakwell.
The News
Directed by Ian Breakwell.
Excerpts from the Diary
Directed by Ian Breakwell and Ron Geesin.
Auditorium
Breakwell's memories of a stranger observed from his window.
The Walking Man
A white linen sheet appears and disappears within a range of different rural and urban locations.
Sheet
No description available.
Nine Jokes
A critique of the institution of mental health care that questions ‘normal’ viewing habits.
The Institution
The Other Side is a double-screen video installation commissioned as part of Breakwell’s residency at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex during the summer and autumn of 2000. The film was shot on the Pavilion’s upper landing, the camera positioned looking out through the curved windows of the stairwell across the exterior balcony to a view of the sea and the horizon. It comprises two alternating sequences projected onto either side of a free standing wall. Footage of elderly couples ballroom dancing on the balcony outside has been slowed down to the rhythm of the accompanying soundtrack, an extract from Franz Schubert’s Nocturne in E-flat Major (Op.148) overlaid by the sounds of breaking waves and seagulls. In the alternating scene, played to the same sound, panoramic vistas of the view out of the building towards the sea and horizon beyond are empty of human presence.
The Other Side
‘The grisly bloody Christmas reality of the city covered in vomit’ is just one of the seasonal tableaux presented through Ian Breakwell’s ‘Christmas Diary’, eight nightly stories into Channel 4’s Xmas programming.