Inept Raconteur

Showing website descriptions (text) of unseen, archived, ephemeral films Clements’ aim is to explore inter relationships between the described and the hidden, object and text. Influenced by Barthes notion that ‘writing is the destruction of every voice’, the work seeks to highlight the functional, mechanical nature of descriptive texts, when removed from context, that sets them apart from traditional notions of narrative and story-telling. Viewers are invited to kneel in reverence, on cushions, to read the texts in front of lamps, set on timers, that may switch off at any moment; a reference to the unstable medium of the original film stocks (that the texts describe) and difficulties of public access for viewing films hidden in archives.