1001 Boys Games

1001 Boys Games was based on a poem written by the painter John Yeadon in 1983. It combines computer-generated drawings by Yeadon from his Impossible Lovers series, with animation and digital video effects in a stream of images complementing the narration of the poem by the dramatist Tom McGrath. In addition to conventional camera-originated material and artwork, a Quantel Paintbox and a BBC micro computer were used to create the hundreds of ‘cells’ featured in the work.
‘Speech returns, but still highly manipulated, in Partridge’s tour-de-force 1001 Boys’ Games, 1984, a video-vision of John Yeadon’s chanted poem, recited by Yeadon, Tom McGrath and Partridge himself. Graphic text, line drawing and video image counterpose each other. The wit of the poem inspires the complex counter-rhythms of the video, just as Yeadon’s relentless and quasi-logical categories echo Partridge’s own taste for philosophical equations (as in the line ‘Boys called John; Boys not called John’, for example).’ – Al Rees