Iain Sinclair

The Whalebone Box

From London to the far reaches of Scotland, the journey in the form of a quest for a whalebone box, related to its place of origin.

Unearthings – On and Off Watling Street

Iain Sinclair walks a section of Watling Street, the Roman road said to have much older origins, from Canterbury to London.

A Walk Back to the Last London by Way of Watling Street

A film shot on an iPhone with a super 8 app documenting a walk made by Andrew Kötting with Iain Sinclair from Dover to London along Watling Street, sometimes in the company of John Rogers and sometimes in the company of Anne Caron-Delion.

London Overground

London Overground retraces legendary London writer Iain Sinclair’s journey with film-maker Andrew Kötting around the Overground railway on foot for the book of the same name. The film follows Sinclair reprising the walk over the course of a year rather than the day’s walk of the book.

A Walk By Waiting

A short super-8 film walking several of Harold Pinter's poems about East London.

By Our Selves

Andrew Kötting's film retraces John Clare's journey from Epping Forest to Northamptonshire accompanied by a straw bear.

Black Apples

This work is inspired by the BLACK APPLES OF GOWER – a book by Iain Sinclair. The film investigates the ideas of travel, memory, history and place by cutting off a horses head and sticking it over a middle aged man's face. Made in collaboration with Iain Sinclair and Anonymous Bosch with music by Buster Grey-Jung and support from Common Ground.

Abandoned Goods

Abandoned Goods is an essay film exploring the journey of one of Britain’s major collections of Asylum Art containing about 5,500 objects (paintings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures and works on stone, flint and bone) created between 1946 and 1981, by about 140 people compelled to live in the Netherne psychiatric hospital in South London. Blending archive, reconstruction, animation, 35mm rostrum, and observational photography, the film explores the transformation of these objects from clinical material to revered art objects examining the lives of the creators and the changing contexts in which the objects were produced and displayed.

The Golden Temple - Olympic Regeneration of East London

The Golden Temple - Olympic Regeneration of East London.

Swandown

Director Andrew Kötting and writer Iain Sinclair sail a swan-shaped pedalo from Hastings to Hackney in London in the build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

Artefact #5: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Artefact #4: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Bunhill Fields Artefact: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Artefact #2: Swandown – Culled from a Waterbound Journey from Hastings to Hackney

Each piece was edited from material that was from the SWANDOWN shoot and named Artefacts 1-5.

Postmodernism: The Substance of Style

This film features some of the most important living Postmodern practitioners, Charles Jencks, Robert A M Stern and Sir Terry Farrell among them, and asks them how and why Postmodernism came about, and what it means to be Postmodern. This film was originally made for the V&A exhibition 'Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 - 1990'.

The London Perambulator

Leading London writers and cultural commentators Will Self, Iain Sinclair and Russell Brand explore the importance of the liminal spaces at the city's fringe, it's Edgelands, through the work of enigmatic and downright eccentric writer and researcher Nick Papadimitriou - a man whose life is dedicated to exploring and archiving areas beyond the permitted territories of the high street, the retail park, the suburban walkways.

Edgeland Mutter

"The film attempts to invoke a sense of the past via the here-and-now. Drawing on my own extensive Super 8 archive and a growing body of Mini DV footage the film portrays a fragmented and nostalgic view of a part of the world that has proved vital to the very fabric of my existence. Amongst the sonic flotsam and jetsam lie littoral truths, half-truths and coastal myths. Both melancholic and absurd the ‘coastcard’ is a confusing missive from a place of hope. It is a reminisce and flawed celebration. Hastings as a place where both memories and people are pulled towards the sea in a strange state of ‘reverse evolution’." – Andrew Kötting

Offshore (Gallivant)

Beginning in the pitch-black early hours of a September morning, the film follows a 14hr 17min cross-channel relay swim that I made along with my brothers Mark and Joey, a friend Ian Dale, the actor and comedian Sean Lock (Smart Alek and co-writer of This Filthy Earth) and the actor Tchili (This Filthy Earth and Ivul). The attempt was witnessed by the writer and wordsmith Iain Sinclair and is narrated by Eden Kötting. The film came about in 2006 (the 10 year anniversary since the release of the original film Gallivant) and the chance discovery of a boat called The Gallivant, which offered to shadow us across the Channel as a support vessel. Flotsam and jetsam in the form of conversations, field recordings and the voices of Gladys and Eden from the original film invade. The film shows scenes of explicit vomiting.

Displacements

An abstract film, collecting together the 6 rooms Dave McKean made for Chris Petit to reshoot, cut-up, and generally abuse, in pursuit of images for his film 'Asylum', made in collaboration with the writer Iain Sinclair.

London Orbital

A filmmaker sets out to make a voyage of discovery on London's orbital motorway, the M25. He enlists the help of several others to film the motorway from several points, drive endlessly around it and dig up stories and potential beauty behind the motorway.

The Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves

The 12th Episode from the "Eurotika" documentary series, made for the UK Channel 4 about European exploitation cinema. This one looks at the films of British director Michael Reeves, who died under mysterious circumstances at age 25. Interviews include TV star and longtime fellow Ian Ogilvy, who starred in all three of Reeves's features, award winning author Iain Sinclair and Paul Maslansky, who produced Reeves's first movie.

The Falconer

Chris Petit & Iain Sinclair's liminal, laminal tribute to underground filmmaker Peter Whitehead, featuring image manipulation by Dave Mckean & reminiscences from various countercultural characters. A fitting epitaph for an English margin walker.

Terror and Magnificence

A short film made for BBC2, it features insight into the inspiration that Christ Church, Spitalfields gave the composer/performer, John Harle, in the composition of the piece 'Terror and Magnificence'. Writer Iain Sinclair and Professor of Architecture Keith Critchlow contribute with fascinating detail about the structure of the building, the neighbourhood and the overwhelming presence of this huge-scale Hawksmoor church, built after The Great Fire of London.