New for Film4 Summer Screen this year, Somerset House has commissioned a short film to be screened ahead of each evening’s feature film, setting the atmosphere for the fantastical stories ahead. Starring David Cann (Brass Eye), ‘For Sooth’ has been created by performance artist Mel Brimfield and filmmaker Ewan Jones Morris - both are artists in Somerset House Studios, the experimental workspace inside Somerset House, which encourages multi-disciplinary collaboration. For Sooth temporarily transforms Somerset House courtyard into an ancient ruined temple housing the vast disembodied head of an Oracle. Casting the filmgoers as attendants from the four corners of the city to hear his Word, the film features elaborate psychedelic animated sequences, combined with live action and centres on the virtuoso performance of a scripted monologue.
Channel is Somerset House’s new curated online space for art, ideas and the artistic process.