This is Now: Film and Video After Punk, BFI Southbank

Off the back of the V&A’s popular Club to Catwalk 80s fashion exhibition, the BFI Southbank continues London’s love affair with the decade of shoulder pads and hairspray with a season dedicated to experimental 80s films.

This Is Now: Film and Video After Punk at the BFI features provocative films, many filmed on Super8 and VHS, made by art students, clubbers and members of the industrial and New Romantic subculture scenes of the early 1980s. A decade known for inventing the blockbuster, it was also responsible for the mass birth of video art, as this season will proudly showcase. 

For the season, these vidos have been specially compiled into programmes such as 'Through a Glass Darkly', 'Home Taping', 'Video Killed the Radio Star' and 'Performing the Self'. Many of the films in this season have been out of circulation for decades, now tracked down, scanned and printed as part of the BFI National Archive's restoration work. Among them are early films by John Maybury, Grayson Perry, and Adam Ant, and even early video releases from the likes of Echo and the Bunnymen. 

There are discussions on the effect of the introduction of MTV on wider society, the rise of the music video, and on video releases that exploded into a society barely ready for a fourth television channel. It's a welcome return for a season of experimental cinema at the BFI outside its (excellent) monthly Essential Experiments screenings.

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MEMBERS EXCLUSIVE: As a Culture Whisper member you can enjoy £1.50 off all events and films in the Film and Video After Punk Season at BFI Southbank. Simply quote WHISPER online*, in person or over the phone*. (020 7928 3232). 

*online and telephone booking fee of £1.00 per person