Beckett’s work has inspired many contemporary visual artists, but in recent years it has been the area of artists’ film that has seen the clearest impact.

On Friday 23rd of June 2023, The Samuel Beckett Research Centre at the University of Reading will present rarely screened work by several artists. The screenings will be followed by a roundtable discussion and the launch of Samuel Beckett’s Afterlives: Adaptation, Remediation, Appropriation, the recent collection of essays edited by Jonathan Bignell, Anna McMullan and Pim Verhulst.

The programme for the event includes:

Introduction by Conor Carville 

Stan Douglas, Vidéo (2007): Introduced by Pim Verhulst.  

Stan Douglas’ video installationVidéois a reimagining of both Orson Welles’s film “The Trial” (based on Kafka’s novel of the same name) and Beckett’s film “Film”.  

John Gerrard, Bone Work (Gulf of Mexico) (2022): Introduced by John Gerrard (Via Zoom).  

John Gerrard’s Bone Work (Gulf of Mexico) is a simulation centred on sixteen fragments of dead coral found by the artist on the shores of the Yucatán Peninsula on the Gulf Of Mexico. 

Duncan Campbell, o Joan, no…(2006): Introduced by Duncan Campbell.  

Duncan Campbell’s o Joan, no…(2006) is a short film drawing on the lighting directions and effects in Beckett’s Play 

Roundtable Discussion on Beckett, Artists’ Film/Installation and Adaptation. 

Jonathan Bignell (Reading); Pim Verhulst (Antwerp); Duncan Campbell; David Houston Jones (Exeter); Anthony Paraskeva (Roehampton); Derval Tubridy (Goldsmiths); Jivitesh Vashisht (UCD).  

The screenings will begin at 2:00pm in Minghella Studios’s cinema at the University of Reading, with the roundtable discussion beginning at 4:30pm. The event will be followed by a reception at 6:00pm.

The event is free, and all are welcome, but places are limited, so please register here. More details of timings and participants to follow.

Image: Stan Douglas. Vidéo, 2007. High definition video installation, colour, sound (six musical variations. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner New York/London, and Victoria Miro, London.