Transmission review: David Bate and the Stalker Complex (November 11, 2009)

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Date: November 11, 2009

By Brook Davis

David Bate comes to us with an impressive curriculum. Course Leader of MA Photographic Studies at the University of Westminster, London, writer about theory and history of photography, and a renowned artist with photographic work displayed on a par with other famous artists such as Jo Spence, Jeff Wall and Janet Cardiff, an impressive curriculum indeed.

However all his attempts to explain his work, fell to the ground to present themselves without purpose or content, based on misconceptions and stereotypes, culminating with the complete failure in submitting a project developed in Tallinn, Estonia, where due to their cultural Soviet background he tried to create a cultural bridge between the students of Tallinn and their work, using for this purpose screen shots of the fabulous film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. The idea wasn’t bad, if it wasn’t the case that was based on typical west misconceptions about the film, obtaining however, he said, a complete understanding from the students.

But in the end, was lost in the air the lack of response about how there can be an understanding between two very different concepts such as alienation, defended by Bate, and religiosity and spirituality emanating from the movie, typically of Soviet culture and omnipresent in all Tarkovsky’s work.