East, London
Cameron Scott
A Soft Rupture
Sid MotionSid Motion Gallery is pleased to present the screening of a new film by Cameron Scott. Scott (b.1991, Southampton, U.K) studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, U.K from 2010-2013. In 2016 Scott completed the Central Saint Martins Associate Studio Programme, which he was awarded in 2013. Scott currently lives and works in London. The film is 21.35 minutes long and will play on a loop from 6pm. Alongside the screening a still from the film will be presented. --- A Soft Rupture Cameron Scott’s A Soft Rupture presents grainy footage of a fox in London at night-time, ostensibly doing very little. The fox, upon realising that it is being filmed or at the very least that there is a human presence nearby, pauses. This pause provides it with enough space to realise that neither human nor camera are of much concern, and it subsequently continues to go about its activity. As the film progresses, we see a number of cuts and the positioning of the film camera shifts. The fox, however, is a constant. It is not always on screen but it remains the subject. A fox is many things. It is a creature of cunning, a thing of elegance, or conceivably a signifier of something overtly political in the form of 2004 hunting ban. Without having seen the film, any one of the obvious associations could be the assumed subject matter. Yet upon watching the film, it quickly becomes apparent that none of the obvious reads ring true. The focus is not an indistinguishable mass of ginger fur and flesh being devoured by hungry hounds. Rather, this is a fox living peacefully in residential south London. Its tail is not as bushy as it would perhaps like, but otherwise the fox shows little outward signs of discontent. In this regard, whilst the fox remains the subject matter, the film is less about the fox than the analysis it provides of what is happening nearby. The fox is simultaneously subject matter and background. It is something that, in the city at least, operates on the margins of society. Yet the city provides the promise of some form of shelter and food. This is presumably the reason that the fox has situated itself here. As it scratches its leg and circles the open space, passing time before its next meal, the fox brings attention to its surroundings. In doing so, it provides a brief moment to contemplate both the banality of what we are witnessing and the state of what is happening around us. The fox is the backdrop to an event. The only catch is that the event is yet to happen, or at the very least that there is no great happening. There is not one event, but a series of events that shape the city ranging from government policy to one’s decision to move to a new postcode. The film is reliant on subtlety but quietly asks us to look and consider what is changing around us on a daily basis. - Max Fletcher