Catalogue > At random

A two-channel cyclical installation that acts as a personal and conceptual re-tracing of and meditation on the relationship between body, site and choreographic archive. It is a response to the passing of the artist’s friend, mentor and collaborator the British dance artist Rosemary Butcher MBE. The title comes from a note made during a conversation with Butcher some years ago: ‘the actual structure is the material’, surrounded by arrows and scribbles and with no further elaboration. This is an example of the unique phrasing and specificity of words that formed the basis of her choreography. This work is an attempt to apply some of these concerns to the choreographic edit and structural framework of moving image. The film’s spoken narration draws upon phrases and instructions directly from Butcher’s notebooks and interviews; notes made by Williams during conversations and observations throughout their collaborations; interviews with several dancers; and original writing. Two works from Butcher’s archive provide the conceptual backbone of the film. The Site (1983) and Test Pieces (2015) draw their source material from specific ruined sites in Dartmoor and Munich. Williams documents these sites in the present day, drawing connections between them and them and the choreographies they inspired.

Sam Williams (b. 1985, Essex) is a visual artist and filmmaker working predominantly in moving image, installation and performance. This expansive approach to film is a way of questioning what the moving image can be and exploring the connections between the cinematic and the somatic and cinema as a live art. Sam currently lives and works in London, where he is a resident artist at Somerset House Studios. He studied MA Sculpture and Moving Image at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 2016. His first solo show, ‘the actual structure is the material’ took place at Siobhan Davies Dance, London, in 2019. In addition to this his work has been exhibited and screened at institutions such as Outpost (Norwich), Baltic39 (Newcastle), Focal Point (Essex), Jerwood Space, Somerset House, Tate Britain and Sadler’s Wells (London) and Kino Arsenal (Berlin). As part of the audio-visual group Emptyset he has performed internationally and has shown collaborative works with choreographer Rosemary Butcher MBE at The Place (London), Nottingham Contemporary and Akademie der Künste (Berlin).