John Stezaker at Whitechapel

Analogue Soho

This week is the last chance to see Richard Nicholson's photography project, part of the exhibition Analog, at Riflemaker in Soho.  The portraits capture, in all their glory of organised chaos, London's professional darkrooms still printing from film-stock to paper.  Beginning the project in 2006, at that time 204 studios were still in operation yet sadly only 3 years later, on completion of the project, just 6 remained.  

This project echos the all too familiar grief shared by lovers of analogue formats, having also recently taken a further blow at the news the Soho Film Lab (now known as Deluxe Soho, after being bought out by US film giants Deluxe in 2010) will no longer be printing 16mm film.  This was the last lab in the UK still printing 16mm film and is a particularly heavy loss for UK based artist-film makers using this medium.  Tacita Dean, in her article in the Guardian this week, articulates the consequences for film practitioners and the industry.

"Digital is not better than analogue, but different.  What we are asking for is co-existence: that analogue film might be allowed to remain an option for those who want it, and for the ascendency of one not to have to mean the extinguishing of the other.  The real crux of the difference is that artists exhibit, and so care about the final presentation and presence of the artwork in the space.  Other professions have their work mediated into different formats: TV, magazines, billboards, books.  It remains only in galleries and museums that the physical encounter is so critical, which is why artists, in the widest sense, are the most distressed by the obsolescence of analogue mediums."

Sign the online petition to save 16mm film printing in the UK here.  

Analog, also featuring sculptures by Clare Mitten and an interactive light installation by Zigelbaum and Coelho, is on at Riflemaker until 5th March 2011.

Pictured: Richard Nicholson Roy Snell Darkroom, Earlsfield (2006)