Patrick Keiller is an architect who moved to art and film - making to release himself from the stagnant building. He began his presentation of his work by Talking about his early education in architecture, and his experience of being drawn to the adoption of built structures with attributes that weren't of primary importance to the people who designed them. Keiller is interested in how the passage of time wears buildings into something unlike their original intended design, the human presence editing their existence into something new.
He took us through an intriguing selection of images- buildings which are idiosyncratic in their malfunctioning, or in the process of demolition. Keiller started intentionally collecting these buildings, leading him to apply at the Royal College of Art, influenced by the connection he daw between the "adoption" of architecture and Dadaism. His collection soon reached a plateau, Keiller was struggling to find more "funny" buildings. Unsure of how to continue, Keiller started a relationship with the image in motion, finding himself intrigued by the connection between the moving image and the inner monologue of the mind.
From a train in Wembley, inspiration struck Keiller at the sight of a break in the urban landscape, revealing an open field which captivated him. He returned on his bike to find a footbridge framing the view of Wembley Stadium. Struck by the long linearity of the bridge, Keiller made the connection between the scene, and film itself. Having previously believed it pointless to make a moving image of a static structure, this building seemed to bear potential for the built structure and film to meet.
Within the next ten years Keiller had built a collection of many short films, primarily of journeys outside of London. He had found London itself too challenging a subject, until identifying the need for an 'Avatar' to translate Keiller's own interaction with the urban landscape.
Keiller wanted this Avatar to have a homemade yet exotic character, found in the creation of Robinson, who Keiller describes as "poor, not because he lacks money, but because everything he wants is unobtainable", perhaps a reference to the "problem of London", as the artist puts it.
Robinson was created to escape the problem of the narrator's identity, enabling the film to be free of the narrator's perspective or opinions, exploring the marginal or hidden space through him.
Robinson in Ruins is a film created from Keiller's interest in material flows, a questioning of the economy and the distribution of resources made visual. The film was made with installation in mind, with a sense of the camera being drawn almost magnetically to the scenes depicted. The seemingly peaceful landscape shots speak of displacement, of problematic dwelling and of the beauty of landscape functioning as compensation for the lack of land rights.
Though initially prolific in his film making, Keiller's working process was hindered by the creation of the VK Film Institute in the late 90's, which rendered the marginal mainstream, discouraging Keiller from creating work in an environment which he felt was already saturated. During this interim, the story of Robinson continued, with jail time explaining his intermission from the screen. This part of Robinson's story seems to be descriptive of Keiller's thought process- even when not physically making work, Keiller's artistry is active. Robinson, although not visible and not always actualised through the film work, will always have a story to explain his muted existence.
Often working through maps, Keiller finds his routes through rune-like mark making on the surface of a map, followed by Robinson and accompanied by film. After his 3rd film, the artist sought out an alternative way of working with the moving picture, finding himself tired of the "dryness of writing narration", and hoping to facilitate an interaction with film that would release the viewer from the stagnant witnessing of film.
Keiller created a virtual landscape, accompanying a labyrinth of maps accessible through place names which birthed an exhibition at BFA Southbank. Instead of a linear, sequenced watching experience, the viewer could wander through the orchard of screens, witnessing different moments in different sequences.
An artist with a deep relationship with landscape that goes beyond the simple beauty of the land, Keiller approaches his art making process with the methodical respect of an anthropologist, seeing beyond the structures before him, into the lives of the people who inhabit them. The work he makes speaks of the experience of the Urban and Rural residence through attributes of the landscape that may otherwise go unnoticed, exposing himself as a deep thinker and a unique artist.
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