David Lynch UK Conference 2009 Oct 30th -Nov 1st

[mixomatosis]

Ah well. At least we know.

For the terminally disappointed amongst you, give Tate a ring on 020 7887 8888 (go for option 1), explain the situation and they'll give you a freepost address to send your tickets back to. You should get a refund back directly if you've paid by card. Obviously if you went in to buy it just go back to return it. And if you're still planning to go, do it anyway - you might get a partial refund.

...sometimes I feel rather disappointed with the lack of support the site gets from some of the celebrities that I've tried to get interviews with...

I get the impression that a lot of public figures are still a bit wary about the whole internet thing, as it effectively puts the punters and the "stars" on a level pegging. Some, like Lily Allen (Keith Allen's irritating singing daughter), Stewart Lee (British stand-up comedian), in my experience, PFFR (Wonder Showzen/Xavier guys), and even yer man Lynch to an extent (with the chatroom stuff) embrace this and engage with their fans directly. Others... don't. Which they're entitled to do, it's their life after all, but if they bother having a web presence then they shouldn't be surprised when people want to get in touch. If you want to avoid that, don't give people the choice.

Not that any of this is relevant to the topic.

[musicaddict]

I am attending this event and just wanted to give abrief report since no one else has yet.

Last night Blue Velvet was screened - really enjoyed getting to see this on the "big screen" as I never did as I was too young when it originally came out. Towards the end int he scenes where Dorothy is naked in the house with Jeffrey people in the audience were laughing at Laura Dern's expressions - not entirely sure why....

Anyways the actual syposium was today. Will try and jot a few poitns below:

* It was mentioned at the beginning that this is the largest ever conference organised regarindg David's work
* The idea for the symposium came from a PhD student: Richard Martin. He is also doing his dissertation on Daivd and it is called "The Architecture of David Lynch"

The talks were divided as follows:
THE BODY
1. "Weird" by Roger Luckhurst. Briefly this looked at Lynch's work as having a distinctive American theme, the theme of "weird" and not just European influences.
2. "The Prosthetic Imagination of David Lynch" by Tom McCarthy. This looked at how David uses prosthetics in his cinema.

Both of these talks were really interesting and really delving into David's work. A Q&A followed this.
The next section
THE EYE 1
Concentrating on the visual Lynch.
1. Photographer Gregory Crewdson discussed his own work in relation to being influenced to a certain degree by Lynch and Blue Velvet. It was interesting but there wasn't enough Lynch connections for my personal taste.
Q&A followed.
THE EYE 2
1. Daria Martin discussed her own short film Harpsichords and Lava and connected it to Lynch's work by talking about the clashing spatial elements and also not providing a resolution in the narrative. She screened her movie. She admitted to not knowing all of David's work and to be honest I don't feel there was a strong enough connection between her work and David's.
2. Louise Wilson also presented a short film she and her sister had done which is used a similar visual look to some of David's stuff ' it was ok but quite old from 1995. She then showed a visual installation they had done for the BFI but was actually related to Stanley Kubricks work.
Both were interesting but I think lacked a strong enough connection to David's work. I think this was evident in the Q&A as no one had any questions for them (other than the chair).
THE MIND
Both the next talks concentrated discussions on Inland Empire (which is screening tomorrow night)
1. "Sticking to the plot"by Parveen Adams. This was extremely interesting discussing the whole film within a film and how the characters change and merge throughout the film without the viewer knowing who is who.
2. "Cast out this wicked dream that seized my heart ' On David Lynch's Inland Empire"by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster. At this point I was quite tired. There was so really interested stuff that came up in this but it moved too quickly for me to follow. Would have been good to actually physically read this discussion. They used a lot of quotes from the film and discussed how the film reflects marriage and how much a husband truly knows his wife/vice versa.
After the break they screened a video message from David himself!

It was filmed in B&W but he was sitting with drapes behind him. He was asked several questions but we heard no voice and the questions were simply written on the screen. When he answered he spoke like the little man from another place on Twin Peaks. I think the questions he was asked were things like how he feels about the symposium taking place on Hallowean. To be honest I don't remember it all but there was nothing significant related to new projects or anything like that. It was very short and just humourous.
I left at this point so not sure how the end-off discussion went.
Also the event was filmed ' not sure if it is being made available though.

[Annie]

Thank you very much for your reporting, musicaddict! I was looking at this last night wondering if anybody went. Maybe we'll get more reports.

[objective500millions]

Hello everybody,

just joined the forum after years of visiting dugpa.com
I was at the conference and it was quite nice, but most of the themes and talks were very basic and only few aspects were new approaches to Lynch's work.
I enjoyed Chris Rodley's talk as well as David's message.
Here is an upload of mine including the full message (sorry for the bad quality):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShYX5wbiA8

Cheers

[Kovitch]

I attended the Conference and have written a full response below at my blog THE DRIFT (linked below). Without doubt, Chris Rodley's contribution at the end of the day redeemed the afternoon, which after the promise of the morning rapidly descended into a mixture of irrelevance and confused academic experiment. The Lost Highway was definitely not being mapped! Furthermore, the work by Lynch that was discussed was often highly selective (almost total emphasis on Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Mulholland and INLAND)) which as Chris Rodley pointed out, doesn't really reflect how Lynch both works and is. Because he's so multi-faceted the smaller projects in all mediums need noting also if we're to arrive at a useful overview.

Anyway, further thoughts along these lines can be located here:

http://richardkovitch-thedrift.blogspot ... ghway.html

RK

[Mb3]

Thanks a lot for posting the link to your blog Kovitch. I found it really interesting to read what you wrote about the Conference and also the things you mentioned in general about Lynchs work and the interpretation of it.

[Annie]

Thanks for sharing your blog with us, Kovich. Very interesting thoughts. Make sure you come back again!