22 / 10 / 2015 19.00 h

APG Artists Take on Television

Lecture and Videoscreening with TV-producer Anna Ridley
(English)

“Art, music, design and fashion defined ‘Swinging London’ in the 1960s as creativity burst onto the streets transforming the ordinary into extraordinary. Many artists forsook the confines of galleries wanting to place their work directly before the public gaze. I had the good fortune to be at art college, at this time, and was caught up in the sheer exuberance and optimism that spread around the whole country.

Inspired, in part, by the aims of the Artist Placement Group I resolved to find a way to bring artists into the arena of broadcast television.

Documentaries on artists and their work change the nature of that work: scale, colour, texture is interpreted via another medium. Why not invite artists to use the medium and context of broadcast television to create unique and original work not realisable in any other form? Having worked as a designer on many different programme types, I was well versed in current developments of electronic techniques which offered almost limitless
possibilities.

The arrival of Channel 4 TV, at the beginning of the 1980s, gave me my chance: Jeremy Isaacs, the CEO, declared he wanted programmes like no other. Yes, I said! The presentation will feature my work with John Latham, Ian Breakwell and David Hall.”

Anna Ridley worked as production designer, producer, director, juror for TV & Film festivals and occasional visiting lecturer. She joined BBC TV in 1968 and designed for a wide variety of programme types: entertainment, current affairs, drama, arts and music and sport. She assisted David Hall with his early films, TV and video works, and was involved with the Artist Placement Group from the late 1960s. Anna initiated the idea and was associate producer for BBC TV’s “Arena” issue on Video Art in 1976 and produced David Hall’s widely known work “This is a Television Receiver” which prefaced the programme.

She formed her own production company, Annalogue, which was commissioned to produce artists programmes for Channel Four, BBC TV and MTV.