Popular Unrest, is a multi-episode drama set in a future much like the present. Here, however, all exchange transactions and social interactions are overseen by a system called ‘the Spirit’. A rash of unexplained killings have broken out across the globe. They often take place in public but witnesses never see an assailant. Just as mysteriously, groups of unrelated people are suddenly coming together everywhere, amassing new members rapidly. Unaccountably, they feel a deep and persistent sense of connection to one another.
The film explores a world in which the self is reduced to physical biology, directly subject to the needs of capital. Hotels offer bed-warming servants with every room, people are fined for not preventing foreseeable illness, weight watching foods eat the digester from the inside and the unemployed repay their debt to society in physical energy. If on the one hand this suggests the complete domination of life by exchange value do the groupings offer a way out?
Shot in London with a cast of twelve main actors, the film’s form is partly inspired by David Cronenberg’s ‘body horror’ and American television dramas CSI, Dexter and Bones, where reality is perceived through a pornographic forensics of empirical and visceral phenomena. As with Gilligan’s recent video works, the film’s episodic structure takes its cue from television and the medium’s ability to dispense its storyline in stages.
Melanie Gilligan was born in Toronto in 1979. She currently lives in London and New York and works in a variety of media including video, performance, text, installation and music. Gilligan completed a BA (Hons) Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in 2002 and was a Fellow with the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Programme in 2004-5. Recent exhibitions include: Transmission Gallery Glasgow (2008) as part of the Glasgow International Festival and Franco Soffiantino Gallery, Turin (2009). In 2008 Gilligan released Crisis in the Credit System, a four-part fictional mini drama about the recent financial crisis, made specifically for internet viewing and distribution, commissioned and produced by Artangel Interaction. She has recently completed a single screen film Self-capital (2009), commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Arts London as part of the group exhibition ‘Talk Show’. In October 2009 Gilligan was the recipient of a Paul Hamlyn Award for Artists.
Popular Unrest is co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver. Supported by Galleria Franco Soffiantino, Turin and Outset Contemporary Art Fund.
Gilligan has developed a site-specific installation for each exhibition, which will premier at Chisenhale Gallery in May 2010 and will be reconfigured for the subsequent venues. A series of talks and events will accompany each exhibition.
Chisenhale Gallery
7 May – 20 June 2010
www.chisenhale.org.uk
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
26th June - 5th September
www.koelnischerkunstverein.de
Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre
August 14 – October 24, 2010
www.banffcentre.ca/wpg
Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver
November 2010
www.presentationhousegall.com
POPULAR UNREST (2010)
Written and Directed by
Melanie Gilligan
Producer
Johanna Wartio
Executive Producer
Chisenhale Gallery / Polly Staple
John | John-Christian Bateman |
Guy | Guy Henderson |
Mensah | Mensah Bediako |
Emma | Emma Perry |
Peter | Peter Henderson |
Padma | Padma Damodaran |
Stephanie | Stephanie Gunner |
Christy | Christy Meyer |
Ben | Ben Murray-Watson |
Katherine | Katherine Peachey |
Rory | Rory McCallum |
Zhivila Entelechy | Zhivila Roche |
Lab Assistant | Laura Evelyn |
Victim in office | Steven Ram |
Office worker | Daren-Luc Kelly |
Victim on treadmill | Alex Dower |
Acquaintance in gym | Tom Murphy |
Victim in the atrium | Marina Vishmidt |
Woman next to victim | Lyndal Marwick |
Victim in the tube | Matt Jamie |
Servant | Erifili Missiou |
Extras in the gym | Tom Ackers, Emily Norman, Jana Nemcovicova, Emily Ng |
Extras in the tube | Melissa Castagnetto, Beatrice Dillon, Suni La, Ben Cooper |
Extras in the atrium | Gregory Szabo, Maija Timonen, Steve Saxby, Hannah Raehse-Felstead |
Main voice over | Emily O'Connor, Tamsin Clarke, Simon J. Grant, Rachel Dobell, Francis Adams, Ellen Verenieks, Abigail Longstaffe |
International news readers | Karin Schneider, Demetra Kotouza, Ilze Black, Maija Timonen, Hicham Ayouch, Hua Zhang, Mattin, Sayako Sugawara |
Director of Photography
Matthew Noel-Tod
Editor
Melanie Gilligan
Original Music
Ben Seymour
Assistant Director
David Panos
Sound Recordist
Tom Sedgwick
Sound Editor and Re-recording Mixer
Christopher Wilson
1st Assistant Camera
André Döbert
2nd Assistant Camera
Jackson Holmes
Associate Producer
Andrew Bonacina
Production Assistant
Katherine O’Shea
Runner
Benjamin Cooper
Driver
Ben-James Mealing
Catering
Cindy Haberstich
Art Director
Erifili Missiou
Prosthetic Effects Designer
Paul Hyett
Prosthetics Supervisor
Robbie Drake
Make-up Artist
Boglarka Gulacsi
After Effects
Dominik Binegger
Additional Graphics and After Effects
Tom Ackers
Logo Design and Graphics
Tim Booth
Posters in opening scene designed by Dan Mitchell
Spirit commercial filmed in Second Life by Metaverse TV
Colourist
John Holloway
Portobello Post Ltd.
Title Design
Tom Ackers
Special thanks for script and edit support
Tom Ackers, Anna Dick, Anja Kirschner, Matthew Noel-Tod, David Panos, Ben Seymour
Special thanks
Isabelle Hancock and all at Chisenhale Gallery, Kathrin Jentjens & Anja Nathan-Dorn, Kitty Scott & Naomi Potter, Reid Shier, Franco Soffiantino, Michael Gilligan, Andrew Haigh, Alastair Cookson, Joshua Peck, Transport for London, Tower Hamlets Film Office, York Hall, Only Connect, Panalux, New Day Pictures, Richmond Film Services
Thanks
Jean Waterson, Mark Dell, Michelle Myrie, Kate Reston, Tamsin Dillon, Karen Stevenson, Kirsty McIntyre, Michael Januska, Ole Mienert, Allan Murray, Paul J Cook, Angelina Baker-Smith, Becky Hogge, James Sweetbaum, Susannah Routledge, Kat Hawker, Alex Kitnick, Tim Savage, Iain Boal, Gillian Boal
Supported by
Galleria Franco Soffiantino, Turin
Outset Contemporary Art Fund
Arts Council England
Co-commissioned by
Chisenhale Gallery, London
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre and
Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver
All names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons either living or dead is intended or should be inferred.
© 2010 Popular Unrest by Melanie Gilligan, all rights reserved.
For press and information on exhibitions
Chisenhale Gallery
mail@chisenhale.org.uk
Kölnischer Kunstverein
presse@koelnischerkunstverein.de
Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre
Naomi Potter, naomi_potter@banffcentre.ca
Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver
Diane Evans, devans@presentationhousegall.com
For festivals and film distribution
Linda Johanna Wartio, moomba04@hotmail.com
Website by Wolfram Wiedner