Basketball Jones combines writing and video in a somewhat autobiographical story about quitting drinking and watching NBA games. Created by multimedia artist Beth Fox, it starts in a doctor’s waiting room, before sprawling out in a stream of consciousness-style moving collage.

Meandering from Yoga with Adriene, to art school stereotypes, cheerleading and billionaire basketball players, Beth contemplates the seemingly rival interests of sport and art. Through a rhythmic flow of words, hangovers are replaced with free throws, as one addiction is swapped for another. 

Starting with a piece of writing that was edited and edited and read aloud and recorded many times, Basketball Jones uses a mixture of greenscreen, found footage, and hand drawn 2D props, to show the protagonist’s journey of quitting alcohol and becoming born again as a sports fan.

 

 

Through relating to the Clarice Lispector quote that said reading what she has written was like eating her own vomit, Beth see’s her visuals as a way of making her own ‘vomit’ more palatable.

The script for Basketball Jones was written towards the end of 2018. It languished as a word doc on Beth’s desktop until 2020 when it was finally shot and edited during the first coronavirus lockdown. Once complete, it languished again, mainly because Beth thought it was too weird and niche to share with anyone. 

For On Repeat, Basketball Jones was shown alongside two other video works in an Online Screening.
 

 

“This piece has a bit of an epilogue. Basically I stopped following basketball a year or so after I made it because the team that I had arbitrarily chosen to support sold a bunch of the players I had grown to love and then I didn’t know who to watch. I have no attachment to the places (were the Utah Jazz better than the Sacramento Kings?), and because of that I didn’t know where to put my loyalty after my team became a shadow of it’s former self. 

I suppose a true sports fan would be faithful to Their Team and watch players come and go, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

I went back to drinking instead.”

 

We shared elements from this exhibition, and the rest of our programme across our digital platforms. To get a sense of the live programme check out our highlights on Instagram.

 

Beth Fox is a multimedia artist from Ireland who uses moving image to tell personal stories. 

Some of her recent exhibitions include: Beth Fox: Independent Contractor, Platform Arts Belfast, Ireland; MirrorLampPress Issue 6 online; The London Open 2022; Whitechapel Gallery, UK; and Soft Focus Exchange, Busan, South Korea. 

 

Screenshot from Basketball Jones