P R E S S
A review by Alistair Fitchett from Plan B Magazine Nov/Dec 2004 http://www.planbmag.com Lady Lucy: Movie Memories (Media Art Bath) £3
.Bristol based Lady Lucy is fascinated with how our lives interact with art and media, and vice versa. Her ongoing project ‘Being Lady Lucy’ spans a multitude of sketchbooks and websites and is effectively a living diary, a breathing blog that records her dialogue with the world and the people she comes into contact with. ‘Being Lady Lucy’ is reality TV with interesting characters and naturally strange narratives, scribbled in ink on paper.
This side project (but of course ultimately it’s all part of ‘Being Lady Lucy’) accompanies a show curated by Media Art Bath and is her first book. It is similarly about the interface between everyday life and popular culture, but specifically explores the idea of memory associated with the experience of film. Constructed around interviews with visitors to Age Concern Bath and North East Somerset, the book punctuates the individuals’ recollections of cinema-going in the 1930s and ‘40s with Lucy’s wonderfully warm and wilfully naïve drawings. It all makes for a delicious and heart warming little book filled with snippets of naturally ragged, random and hazy conversations and lines. ‘Movie Memories’ should nestle on your shelves right between a copy of Dexy’s ‘Show Me’ / ‘Old’ and those old Film Annuals charity shop finds. Ace.
From Frances May Morgan's blog on planbmag.com
1st April The Foundry
The Foundry is the only place on Old Street that has any class at all. The only place where you won't find blank-eyed young people masking their disappointment in their first media jobs with too-loud voices and really expensive bad beer. The little corner of Hoxton that is forever Hackney, that is forever ugly, and is guaranteed free of polka-dotted TopShop clothing. This is where the grafitti in the loo says 'John Zorn fucks young Asian girls' (Note: Mr Zorn, if you ever read this, please be assured that if I'd had a pen I would written underneath AND HE IS A GENIUS! but I didn't), and a black cat sits on your lap and sometimes there's obnoxious,too-loud spoken word, and sometimes there's beautiful, soft music and sometimes you're in the dank basement seeing hearing something that sounds like it belongs in Throbbing Gristle's studio/factory c.1979 - hey, I heard they were fashionable again! Great! I look forward to the hipsterfication of the Hackney 80s squatter aesthetic and Psychic TV Revival with bated breath.
That is a lie. I most certainly do not.
The air in all pubs is thick with disappointment; but in the Foundry, it's tangible, not hidden, and therefore it's nice, friendly, slightly raucous yet sarcastic if you go too far with the raucous. In the fucked up candles and desperate plants in the window, and the sometimes really good art dotting the pockmarked walls you can see and feel the struggle of staying yourself in this city. You can trace the lines this struggle etches onto people's faces and hear hermetic language this struggle causes you to develop. Oh, look. Frances May. Stop this. Really, it's just a scruffy old bank or office that used to be a squat and now is a hanging-on-for-dear-life bar in an area increasingly devoid of charm and deviance. I go there because it makes me feel comfortable and nostalgic, although I'm not sure what for, because Iam not *old* or anything, and the man who works in Oxfam Supersaver admires my outfit (and look, he should know) and I don't look around me and see senior junior second shoes assistants staring me out from beneath their angular Human League fringes as if they can't quite tell if I'm a hipster or what they (sweetly, ironically) would call 'pikey'.
So on Sunday the clocks go forward and Lady Lucy, visiting from Bristol, and I walk all the way there from Whitechapel. It's really not far, even in cowboy boots with a bust-up heel. I expound upon how much I dislike people who don't like walking and we shout about our families. In the Foundry, it's open mic speaking night. This is bad, because Lady Lucy and I want to talk, and because we have to endure the strident tones of Worm Lady ('the worm emerged from the lotus flower and looked around him...') and Burberry Poem Man ('It's burberry! like a tablecloth only more trendy!'). But it's good, because Lady Lucy is a performance artist and she, after some prompting from me, offers herself as the next act up.
The problem is, she needs a volunteer. Lady's act is called 'Hello, what's your name?' She interviews a member of the audience and draws them as she does so. It's a great idea, but tonight there are no volunteers. So I raise my hand, and Lady invites me to sit opposite her, my mouth next to a microphone that's wrapped in a yellow duster.
Lady: Hello, what's your name?
Frances May Morgan: Frances May Morgan
Lady: That's a pretty name, where does it come from?
FMM: From my mum and dad
Lady: where did they get the names from?
FMM: Frances from St Francis of Assisi, Morgan is a Welsh surname and my father is Welsh, and May just sounds nice.
Lady: So, Frances May Morgan, that's a nice dress you're wearing. Have you always been a fashionista?
FMM: Yes. Well. Yes. I suppose so.
Lady: Where is that dress from?
FMM: Dalston Oxfam Supersaver on Kingsland Road. It's the best shop in Dalston.
Lady: Were you always encouraged to express yourself with clothes as a child?
FMM: Yeah. I had a cape.
Lady: A cape? Like Superman?
FMM: No, a Victorian-style tartan one with brown buttons. I asked my mum if I could have one and she bought it in the jumble sale.
Lady: And do you have any capes now?
FMM: Yes, I have three capes. One green felt one with sigils on it. One black wool army one, and one kind of opera cape which is made of taffeta with silver bits.
Lady: What did you want to be when you were a child? What did you want to grow up to be?
FMM: A librarian, an archaeologist, a dancer, a historian and a music journalist.
Lady: And are you a music journalist?
FMM: (pauses) Yes.
Lady: Well, thank you very much, Frances May Morgan!
She shows the picture she's drawn to the audience. I catch a quick glimpse and am a little perturbed she's given me a late 90-s indie bob. I must get it cut. Maybe that really is what it looks like. Oh well. At least I still have three capes.