REWILDING. NUART ABERDEEN 2023

NUART ABERDEEN 2023 : REWILDING

A film by Doug Gillen for Nuart Aberdeen 2023

The first few years of Nuart, and Street Art in general, were marked by a proliferation of websites, blogs and media whose sole aim seemed to consist of being the “first” out with images of new work. The early 00’s a “goldrush” period for bloggers attempting to increase their reach and followers, often with the promise of higher click through rates, advertising dollars or more likely, a feather in the cap for being first. An attitude of “what can this work do for me” as opposed to “what can I do for this work” prevailed, and in certain aspects still does. The result?, a surfeit of shaky, badly composed, grainy lo-res images flooding the internet that left the public feeling underwhelmed by work that in many cases had been months in the planning and weeks to execute, disrespectful to the art and artist? We thought so.  And with that in mind, in 2009 we took our foot off the gas, took ourselves out of the race to be first, and slid into a slower lane, a more reflective space. What does this work need, how can we document this in a way that does service to the idea, the scale and location behind it, how does it sit in the environment. And if the viewer can’t be physically in front of it, how can we best capture the “feel” of the work before distributing it out into the world digitally.

Over the years we’ve made countless short films, a bunch of documentaries and produced 10’s of thousands of images with this ethos in mind. We’ve worked with many of the leading filmmakers and photographers in the field. Many of the films have an urban vibe, whilst others lean into Tarkovsky, some come with banging dubstep, others with house and post-punk, some have been scored specifically, one was granted use from Primal Scream, another from the estate of Sun Ra. What they’ve all had in common, is that we’ve taken our time, that the work has been considered, that it isn’t contrived or based on self interest and a greedy needy grad for followers. In my opinion, this latest work captures these values and Nuart Aberdeen beautifully, and to do so in 6m 30 secs, is an achievement I never thought possible.