One Thousand and One Boys Games (1984)
Creator:
Partridge, StephenContributor(s):
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Based on a poem by John Yeadon | Performed by John Yeadon and Tom McGrath
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Duration: 10 minutes
Year: 1984
Original formats:3/4" U-Matic Hi Band
Media types:Video
Type of work:Single Screen
Videotape
Technical details: Edited at Edinburgh College of Art, computer imaging at TV Workshop DJCAD, Dundee, Quantel paintbox
‘1001 Boys Games was based on a poem written by the painter John Yeadon in 1983. It combines computer-generated drawings by Yeadon from his Impossible Lovers series, with animation and digital video effects in a stream of images complementing the narration of the poem by the dramatist Tom McGrath. In addition to conventional camera-originated material and artwork, a Quantel Paintbox and a BBC micro computer were used to create the hundreds of ‘cells’ featured in the work.’
– Steve Partridge
“Speech returns, but still highly manipulated, in Partridge tour-de-force 1001 Boy’s Games, 1984, a video-vision of John Yeadon’s chanted poem, recited by Yeadon, Tom McGrath and Partridge himself. Graphic text, line drawing and video image counterpose each other. The wit of the poem inspires the complex counter-rhythms of the video, just as Yeadon’s relentless and quasi-logical categories echo Partridge’s own taste for philosophical equations (as in the line ‘Boys called John; Boys not called John’, for example). ” Al Rees, Stephen Partridge, cat, Univ of Dundee, 1998, MONITORING PARTRIDGE, Al Rees, ISBN 1 899837 29
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