Dave Griffiths – Extinction Event
Extinction Event draws on Dave’s fascination with both film and astronomy, embedding a map of tiny film fragments on the windows of the Phoenix cafebar. Bring your magnifying glass and observe a history of cinema told through cue-dot bursts. Astronomy and cinema are also explored in the film Seer’s Catalogue on the cafebar video-screens.
The exhibition continues in the cube gallery with Babel Fiche, a film that imagines what future generations might make of us from the moments we choose to capture and share. Babel Fiche was created from a crowd-sourced archive of videos distilled and compressed onto microfiche film, a selection of which will also be on display.
Dave Griffiths is an artist, filmaker and curator based in Manchester. His work has been shown internationally, from China to the first ever video-art show in Tripoli, Libya. In 2010 he co-curated the major exhibition UnSpooling – Artists and Cinema at Cornerhouse and this year he has been nominated for the Northern Art Prize.
Extinction Event has been commissioned by Phoenix and MIRIAD. Babel Fiche was commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella with support from North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University, co-produced by Castlefield Gallery and Film and Video Umbrella. Supported by Arts Council England.
Click here to see the Babel Fiche online project
During Dave’s residency, on 13 March 2013 a short gamma-ray burst – lasting 300 milliseconds –was observed exploding in the constellation Serpens. In this teleconference recording, the SWIFT X-ray satellite team verify their detection of radiation from GRB130313A, originatingbillions of years ago in the early Universe. The international team alsodiscuss plans for further deep-field target observations using theSWIFT telescope.