Beatrice Gibson: The Tiger's Mind

The Tiger's Mind is an abstract crime thriller set against the backdrop of a modernist villa. Six characters, The Tiger, The Mind, The Tree, Wind, The Circle and a girl called Amy (the set, the music, the sounds, the special effects, the director and narration respectively) battle one another for control of the film as it unfolds on screen. The film explores the relationships between these characters as they emerge and unfold: grappling, wrestling, and dreaming with one another.

The Tiger's Mind is based on an experimental narrative score of the same title, written in 1967 by the radical British composer Cornelius Cardew. Departing from the character based and improvisatory nature of the score, and working with a fixed group of artists for over a year long period (Alex Waterman as the Tree, Jesse Ash as the Wind, John Tilbury as the Mind, Celine Condorelli as the Tiger, Will Holder as Amy and Gibson as the Circle), the film deployed the score as a production structure inviting the participants to develop its varying components: soundtrack, set, special effects, music and text. The resulting piece documents its own making in fictional form, extending narrative and character to the production process itself, dramatising and re-staging it for film. Tiger's sets, Mind's music, Wind's effects, Tree's sounds, Amy's narration and Circle's direction all knock up against each other in a battle for primacy.

The Tiger’s Mind was developed as part of a longer-term publishing project initiated by Will Holder and Beatrice Gibson in 2010 and realised through a series of week long discussions hosted by Kunsthlerhaus Stuttgart, CAC Brétigny and Kunstverein, Amsterdam. These conversations fed into a publication, edited and produced by Holder, and will be published by Sternberg Press, on the occasion of the exhibition. The Tiger's Mind will also be screened in Leeds at The Hyde Park Picture House in conjunction with an exhibition of the film's props by Celine Condorelli, commissioned by Pavilion.

The Tiger's Mind is presented as part of Gibson's first London solo show. Gibsonâ??s short film Agatha (2012), a psychosexual sci-fi about a planet without speech set in the mountains of Snowdonia, based on a dream of Cardew’s in ‘67, will also be presented at The Showroom. Both works further Gibson’s research into musical modes of production and their potential relationship to film.

The Tiger's Mind is a co-commission between The Showroom London, CAC Bretigny and Index, Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation. The exhibition will also feature a series of talks and events, including a concert by the radical improv group AMM (John Tilbury and Eddie Prevost) and a screening of related films curated by Beatrice Gibson and Mike Sperlinger.