o Joan, no...

o Joan, no… begins in darkness; abstract darkness; primordial darkness perhaps. As the film progresses the darkness is interrupted by light or a light. A random sequence of lights ensues – theatre lights, streetlights, household lights, the lit end of a cigarette. The camera greets these interruptions in the darkness with alarm, reticence, perplexity, curiosity. The accompanying voice emits a series of grunts, moans, sighs, laughs. Nothing happens. – Duncan Campbell, 2006

Exhibited in the cavernous empty spaces of Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom o Joan, no… is a work of no narrative, in which nothing is said. The film is largely of darkness, interrupted by occasional sounds or spots of light. In the dormant charged spaces of the Barrowland, the work suggests an ongoing build-up of anticipation or interval, whilst never apparently making it to the main event.

The film recalls the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, who described his own body of work as ‘a stain upon silence’. In particular, o Joan, no… relates to Beckett’s play Play (1963), in which darkness is broken only by a spotlight illuminating each actor one by one.

Made possible with Art Fund support. Additional support from Barrowland Ballroom