LOVE STORIES

LOVE STORIES presents two moving image works, ‘Elegy’ and ‘TWISTED PAIR’, by artists Lydia Davies and Edward Gwyn Jones. Through an erotic phone call and a wayward narrator, both moving image works employ absurd and scattered exchanges between character duos. Using performance and outmoded technologies, these films visually tease the viewer by withholding and revealing the mechanisms of each set. Within these film-worlds, power dynamics are revealed and contested through erotics, betrayal, grief and lament.

In ‘Elegy’ a wayward narrator recounts several short scenes between a series of character duos whose subtle but consequential gestures reek of soured love. Drawing on research into early projection techniques, the hypnotic woodland scene in ‘Elegy’ is created with a handmade miniature set and a hand built episcopic projector. ‘TWISTED PAIR’ is orientated around two erotic and parodic phone calls between two characters. Ventriloquising dialogue from queer cinema and lyrics from pop music released between 1975 and 1985, ‘TWISTED PAIR’ embraces an alternative periodisation that marks significant socio-political changes with parallel and consequential impacts on gay culture, aesthetics and telecommunications.

These works were originally shown as part of a duo exhibition at Glasgow Project Room in January 2024. The installation exploited the interpersonal dynamics and dyadic relations presented in these two works, placing them in conversation through conjoined seating arrangements and an introductory text by Lydia, available to read on Glasgow Art Map.

Lydia and Edward will introduce the films before the screening.

Please note

This screening involves flashing lights and sexual references.