“BILLY CHAINSAW’S ALPHABILL (a love story)” & “VISIONS FROM INTERZONE”

About

“BILLY CHAINSAW’S ALPHABILL (a love story)” & “VISIONS FROM INTERZONE” is an art exhibition presented in the format of an old school movie double-bill.

In the “BILLY CHAINSAW’S ALPHABILL (a love story)” section, Chainsaw delivers a visual cut-up of the work of author William S. Burroughs and director Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 movie Alphaville. Chainsaw’s art sees Burroughs and Alphaville’s male protagonist, Lemmy Caution, move in and out of the fictional cities of Alphaville and Interzone (a location that features heavily in Burroughs’ writings); both conspiring to smash the shackles of control, both in search of love.

Billy Chainsaw says: “While re-watching Godard’s Alphaville some years ago, the thematic and visual similarities between the movie and the writings of William S. Burroughs hit me harder than a slug from a .45. The more I investigated the connections, the more apparent they became… until my journey reached a conclusion that resonates in Burroughs’ last ever written words: ‘Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is. LOVE’.”

For “VISIONS FROM INTERZONE”, Chainsaw has curated a selection of work by global artists who have either been touched by Burroughs, or whom he knew would rise to the challenge of providing a very personal visual interpretation of Burroughs’ work.

The starring artists are:
ROBERT AGASUCCI, DAVID APPS, JASON ATOMIC, PABLO DAMAS, GERMIZM, AOI HANA, ANTONY HITCHIN, STEWART HOME, GRAHAM HUMPHREYS, SHAKY KANE, and MATTHEW STRADLING.

The exhibition is accompanied by a pre-recorded soundtrack, composed and performed by ANNI HOGAN and MARTIN BOWES (ATTRITION).

On the exhibition:

“Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville fuses noir with science fiction in an idiosyncratic myth; a description which could also apply to many of the works of William S. Burroughs. It seems logical then, that these iconoclasts should find themselves spliced together. Two arch collagists collaged.

Like Godard and Burroughs, Billy Chainsaw’s art operates at some blurred intersection between high culture and pulp. In his arresting and densely layered canvases, and seductive vases, Chainsaw takes the already second hand character of FBI agent Lemmy Caution and gives him a third life – as a duplicate of Burroughs in a monochromatic Interzone of text and static.”

Graham Duff  (actor/writer/creator of BBC TV’s surreal black comedy IDEAL), January 2015