The Future’s Getting Old Like The Rest Of Us is a 16mm film conceived in the format of a TV play and set in an older people’s care home.
Part documentary, part fiction, the script for the film The Future’s Getting Old Like The Rest Of Us was a collaboration between Beatrice Gibson and writer and critic George Clark, and was constructed from transcripts of a discussion group held over a period of five months with the residents of four of Camden’s Care Homes. Taking B.S. Johnson’s 1971 experimental novel House Mother Normal as its formal departure point and employing the logic of a musical score, the script is edited into a vertical structure, featuring eight simultaneous monologues. The Future’s Getting Old Like The Rest Of Us features actors Roger Booth, Corinne Skinner Carter, Janet Henfrey, Ram John Holder, Anne Firbank, John Tilbury, William Hoyland and Jane Wood.
The film was one of five commissions that have taken place as part of the Serpentine Gallery’s Skills Exchange Project in which artists, designers and architects work in collaboration with older people, care workers, young people and activists to develop ideas for social and architectural change. Camden Council co-commissioned the film with the Serpentine Gallery. In addition to the film, stills and scripts were installed in the new care home, completed in 2012 at Maitland Park.
The Future’s Getting Old Like The Rest Of Us was screened in the Sackler Centre for Arts Education from 24th July to 19th September.
Park Nights
Park Nights is an annual series of music, theatre, performances, talks and film screenings staged on Friday nights in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, designed in 2010 by Jean Nouvel. Park Nights culminated on the weekend of 16th and 17th October with the Serpentine Gallery Map Marathon, the latest in the Serpentine’s series of Marathon events, conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist.