| Laughing Girls 1984 |
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| This is the version from Pillow Talk. There is a longer, more annoying, version that we showed at Experiments in Moving Image, Old Lumiere, London, in 2004. | |||||||
| RL - I love Laughing Girls because it has just one source that is repeated, reversed, slowed and speeded. The original intent of the original film-makers is shredded. Laughing girls becomes amusing, annoying, disturbing and finally oppressive and psychotic depending on how long and how loud we dare run it. The target is the viewer. There’s nothing cosy between you and us. Sure it’s entertaining, but it’s unsettling too. It fucking works and it’s not ponderous. When we were putting together the first show we had two online suites running at the same time. I started messing with this and Pete came in and got it straight away. It happened quickly; means, motive, opportunity and alibi – each other. When we worked together instead of pulling in different directions the energy, the ideas, the possibilities would escalate. Sulphate, beer, tobacco, dope. Usually we didn’t preview edits we just did them, but in the roll back time, I’d find myself taking a drag or a slurp. Self-medication to maintain the high through the night without blurring the eye. It could be a hugely technical process, sometimes rewiring the whole system backwards to create effects for Torchsong – Don’t Look Now or Colourbox – Shotgun. Sometimes I’d work all day, leave, meet Pete in the pub or the Italian, wait till everyone had gone, do an all nighter, leave at six, have a fry-up and report for duty at nine. The three hour gap was to let the smoke clear. | |||||||