​Waugh Office was established in 2011 by Julia and Mark Waugh as a hybrid platform.
since then we have worked with curators, writers, theorists and artists to smudge
cultural differences and attitudes across physical and national borders.
Pushing this programme, exploring the traffic between peoples and ideas,
nomadic and unfixed perceptions rather than stereotypes and assumptions.
We come to play and escape prejudice and shout for renegade
values of the broken, unfixable and un-homely.
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© Waugh Office 2024.
Anti-cool
Echo Tides
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Anti cool created a film for Leaving Language called Echo Tides, it was screened throughout the exhibition at
The Metropole Gallery in Folkestone England.
With a series of performative employments anti cool confuses the position of an Artist. Smudging detail to reveal the iconographic, this artist reconsiders the day to day routines of our unmediated reality.
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In a recent documentary Plena Rondo Leaving Language explored the concept of Esperanto and has been screened across the UK.
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Let’s imagine we were not ourselves. We woke up transformed into an alien being with none of the familiar things we had yesterday. Our speech was lower and sounded as if it had been slowed down. We enunciated precisely but created a monstrous slur of vowels: the detuned strings of guitars or a fire howling through Marshall amplifiers, this is the sound of cinema.
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The phobic positioning of others and the absence of empathy has been an ongoing concern for Anti-cool, the new work Echo Tides was shot in Folkestone, hauled in its nets nostalgia, eroticism, sacrifice and regeneration, as well as fish and crustaceans caught in the muddy Dover Straights, in the pages of a screenplay we scroll through words: cold, sea, a fog that lifted slowly. In soft Spring light a boat on the coastline slowly revealed.
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Fishing is the type of industry which politicians use to create Island fictions. In the foggy haze of morning, trays of ice and fruits of the sea crunched together. Gills filled with tears that secreted memories. The fish dripped blood into the image. We were leaving language and could not survive out of water. Whelks, Crabs, Lobsters ...
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The ellipsis marks an omission from speech or the writing of a word when their meaning can be deduced from a context. The echo sounder and the radar detect signs useful to the mariner but we are concerned with Artworks and synonyms to learn and "like" on Facebook.
Time rewinds itself in warm beds when we are dreaming, the person drags a net into the sea; a black, backless gown; cut low to reveal a spine. This is what you wear to make Art in waters that are cold enough to cause pneumonia.The nets were empty and the sea was dark and sublime; who was this terrible monster between continents that hauls sailors to their deaths. What was speaking or making that sound?"Folkestone, Folkestone ..." "
![4 - anti cool nets.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/6e08d1_7734dc1fd7b9402491c7ec6dbfa8ac09~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_830,h_472,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/4%20-%20anti%20cool%20nets.jpg)
"My original plan for the film was to create short documentary, a portrait of the local fishermen, however I couldn't get permission to board the boats for filming, which I though would be essential imagery to complete the project.
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During the month following my initial visit I contacted all the people I could think of in the region who might help me gain access to the boats. I was pretty obsessed wit filming the fishermen out at sea without really consciously knowing the reason. However, gradually I recalled my old childhood memories from the fishing town where I grew up. My grandfather used to mend nets in is living room, and grew the nails of his little fingers to use as a tool, my parents home sat right in front of the sea, my favourite Puffer Fish and raw fish dishes the feeling of dragging a gill net full of fishes onto a beach, the neighbour who lost is life, it all came back with a great sense of nostalgia. An emotion that can be both positive and negative regards the creative process, but one tat offers a rich language for film." Anti-cool - women cinemakers
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Waugh Office was established in 2011 by Julia Waugh and Mark Waugh,
as a hybrid platform curating exhibitions, events and publications internationally
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© Waugh Office 2024.