Akeroyd Collection

Works

Mark Leckey, Dream English Kid, 1964-1999 AD, 2015

Dream English Kid, 1964 - 1999 AD, is a dizzying and sometimes hypnotic or maybe hypnagogic collage of moving images and audio that presents a vaguely chronological autofiction of the artist’s life experience up to 1999. It is said to be an attempt to capture 'found memories' from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, which gradually builds in intensity and swells with an anxious feeling akin to a kind of existential dread. Interweaving references to key historical news events with sounds and visuals of cultural icons such as The Beatles and Joy Division, sites, and locations pertinent to the artist's life that have become recurring motifs across his oeuvre, and found footage of gigs, record shops and excerpts of the artists own work, the film offers a counter-mapping of the late 20th Century. Alongside computer graphics synonymous with early rave culture, documentation of the seedier side of the 80s and 90s London nightlife and discombobulating audio elements that make for a kind of experimental musique concrete, there features, perhaps more unexpectedly, a return to countdowns and solar and lunar eclipses in the film.

Medium4:3 film, colour, 5.1 surround sound
Duration23 minutes
Editionof 6 + 2 APs