A Talk in Writing (2022) is an audio/video work, revisiting and continuing on from an earlier piece, 'A Talk in Writing', from 2001. We recently rediscovered this forgotten work by (accidentally) finding an early compilation tape of ours on Ubu.com [The original version was made for Film & Video Umbrella, London, in response to being asked to give an artists’ talk on our work].

In each work (2001 & 2022), we describe our individual response to and interpretation of particular pieces, taken from a chronological list of our selected collaborative works. These descriptions are written and recorded separately and then put together again, laying down each of the discrete recorded (mono) tracks side by side, as though speaking simultaneously (stereo). The content of the two different texts both contrast and mirror the other. The resulting work/s voicing our own experiences of our ongoing collaborative practice and relationship. The individual 'scripts' can be heard at once; sometimes together, sometimes distinct, though most often overlapping. At times our readings conflict and almost cancel each other out, at others, they echo and reinforce each other. On each listening, a slightly different composition of narrative fragments emerges.

The script content has sexual and violent inferences and - as in all our work - we’re interested in confronting the viewer with provocative ideas, propositions, reflections, questions and inquiries. This is borne out of our curiosity about human relationships.

We develop work over a long time and it often has different iterations at different points, in different contexts.
Our intention is to continue this process and build this work into a kind of spoken archive, describing our diverse body of work together, over many years, but from our own vantage points. Currently, the 'original' (2001) work now has a new 'companion' continuation piece (2022) but importantly, each piece is a work in its own right - and (from now) each time we make a new work, we'll make this one again, as another (recorded) piece. It is our intention for this to grow as an ongoing project / living repository, which talks of past and present, individual and shared experience.

Equally, there is potential for this to exist as a live performance, or the combination of a live reading alongside a recording. The relationship of Live/Recorded is an ongoing one, running through many of our works.

We also plan that each iteration will have an accompanying print edition of the scripts, which will continue to develop as a series.

• https://ubu.com/film/smith_stewart_compi...