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Frances Scott

PHX [X is for Xylonite]

Film expérimental | 16mm | couleur et n&b | 12:44 | Royaume-Uni | 2019

In ‘PHX [X is for Xylonite]’, the first semi-synthetic plastics are considered through their relationship to the chemical and industrial development of photography and film, where cellulose nitrate was used as the base for film-stock until the mid-20th century and in props’ production. Against a collage of digital animation and hand-processed 16mm film, the soundtrack proposes a warped love song between the organic and synthetic, where human voices and recordings in shellac - lacquer obtained from the secretion of the Coccus Lacca insect - are transformed through a Vocoder. Scientist and laboratory technician, Dr. Miriam Wright, reads extracts from Roland Barthes? essay ?Plastics? (1957), colour experiments from a British Xylonite Company laboratory formula book (1888) and symptoms of plastics degradation; ?crazing?, ?yellowing? and ‘bloom’. Although Barthes suggests that plastic “embodies none of the genuine produce of the mineral world: foam, fibres, strata”, in ‘PHX’ plastics are proposed as strata; so that the layers that make up the film - its emulsion and plastic substrate - are made evident; like its material seams that will, in future sedimentary rock layers, signal our Anthropocene era and its flawed capitalist productions.

Frances Scott works with moving image, presented through screenings, installations, events and publications. Her work often considers material that exists around the periphery of the cinematic production and its apparatus, proposing films composed of their metonymic fragments. Recent exhibitions and screenings include: 'Projections', 57th New York Film Festival; New York (2019); Institute of Making, University College London (2019); Edge of Frame / London International Animation Festival, Close-Up Film Centre (2019); Nunnery Gallery, London (2019); Het Bos, Antwerp, Belgium (2018); The Bower, London (2018); Tate St Ives (2018); Annely Juda Fine Art / The Russian Club, London (2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park / Art Licks (2017); Whitechapel Gallery (2015 /2017); Peninsula Arts / South West Film & Television Archive, Plymouth (2017); Focal Point Gallery, Southend (2016); and ‘Selected III’ videoclub FLAMIN screenings in the UK (2013) and USA (2014) including Anthology Film Archives, New York, Seattle International Film Festival, and LA Film Forum. Frances was recipient of the Stuart Croft Foundation Moving Image Award (2017) and associate artist at the Moving Image Research Centre (MIRC), University of East London (2018-2019). She is currently working on research towards her first long-form film, ‘Wendy’, a new film commissioned by TACO! (Thamesmead Arts and Culture Office), London.