Last week, the Guardian ran a great piece which argues that Mark Leckey is one of the most important visual artists of these times. As a result, I had to rewatch the online version of his amazing 1999 video art essay Fiorrucci Made Me Hardcore. I did see it in person at one point, and it's much more stunning blown up to life size, as originally intended. But even shrunk down to a few inches on my computer, the piece — which consists of slowed down images of Northern Soul and early rave dancers — has great power to it, even if you have little interest in the attendant subcultures.
Mark Leckey on Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore from joost vandebrug on Vimeo.
As he says in the above video interview, "I was trying to make my own past using other people's footage, trying to reassemble my memories [with] something approximate to that." He also tells a great story of getting head-butted by a Northern Soul dancer.
It's quite possibly one of the finest collage film/videos since Bruce Conner was at the height of his powers. I stole from it a bit for a video collage I made, all of material stolen from YouTube, which didn't exist yet when Leckey made his amazing work. Whether you've seen it before or not, hope you enjoy Leckey's piece!
