OMSK was formed in 1995, with the intention of drawing together the separate sensibilities of film, performance and sound playing. That was the Rheingold Club off Bond Street and the Conway Hall in Holborn; attempts at an unexpected event hindered by the fixed perspective of one stage, one room. Then came the squatted Barclays Bank on Shoreditch High Street as a part of Volcano! '96, where every nook, cranny and vault was an invitation to mess with constructs (like stirring your coffee with a carpet). The intention was to toy with relationships: relationships between formats, relationships between work and viewer. OMSK sought to locate the viewer inside the work, to be a part of it. This was all occurring around a D.I.Y. sensibility, not considered but raw, idealistic, messy and fun. There was the usual appalling sound, films projected on dust sheets, non-existent health and safety. There was also a violinist in front of a video screen, sound artists curled up in bank safes responding to looped film material, Chip Karney defying taste on video, and Soundtrackarama upstairs in the disused manager's offices spinning dark twisted film scores with sick beats and extraordinary horror film footage - Jodorowsky and Lucio Fulci. Steve Teers was on Trombone. Peter Strickland sold tickets. Sophie Djian held it all together. My Mother showed up. We were full of the adventure of new ways of presenting the things we loved (and the things we didn't love). We showed short films of any nature. A Tracey Emin video performance ran, but that wasn't the main point. The main point emerged later: that artists working in very different ways when brought together or in close proximity, in non-arts spaces, make for inspired events. OMSK was a film club spliced to a warehouse rave spliced to a gallery, laced with disruption, entirely lacking in method but brimming over with possibility.

This passion stems from that fertile and difficult territory between art and film. OMSK is the manifestation of my own compulsion for these edges: film/art,narrative/sequence, club/auditorium, screen/space. OMSK attracts artists working along these and other edges - emerging artists who are testing configurations, and filmmakers who feel frustrated by the tenets of cinema (the fourth wall, the defined character, crossing the line... ) OMSK has screened around 300 films since its inception in '95. Most of them have shown in the upstairs room at the 333 club, EC1, where OMSK settled between '97 and '98. That upstairs room always became jammed with a cross section of people all fixed on the screen. It remained that way all night, although the films on display were seldom easy to watch.

Films such as Scream, Stay Seated (Lou Stevens and the Max Factory), Jo Cripps' Latest Number (Jo Cripps), Hermaphrodite Bikini (Clio Barnard) and Klipperty Klop (Andrew Kotting) all contribute to the tradition of combining performative behaviour with the disciplines of film/video. They are a part of a movement (if one can still talk in terms of movements) which picks up from concerns and processes (often entirely spontaneous) forged by such innovators as Ken Jacobs, Vito Acconci, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman, Beban and Horvatic and Marina Abramovic. OMSK has been at the forefront of providing a space for the resurgence of video and performance work. Emerging artists and filmmakers who often reference the makers mentioned above are also creating new interdisciplinary ways of making. There is a clear need for live and direct activity which these artists and in turn the OMSK event have responded to...

To submit work of any nature or to try and fathom OMSK further call: 0171 833 1009 or e-mail: omsk@pinkpink.demon.co.uk