Margaret Tait Award: Duncan Marquiss, Evolutionary Jerks & Gradualist Creeps at GFF16

Margaret Tait Award-winning artist Duncan Marquiss presents the world premiere of Evolutionary Jerks & Gradualist Creeps (2016), his 30-minute film that examines revolutionary theories of evolution.

Evolutionary Jerks & Gradualist Creeps features interviews with two evolutionary biologists, Niles Eldredge and Armand Marie Leroi, in which they discuss the controversies surrounding Eldredge’s theory of Punctuated Equilibria – a stepped-change picture of the history of life within the fossil record, which Leroi also sees in the evolution of pop music. The conversation considers the analogies and differences between the cultural and the biological realms, taking in Eldredge’s vast collection of brass musical instruments and Leroi’s burgeoning ​‘science of culture’, which uses algorithms to trace cultural genealogies. This dialogue is interwoven with a diversity of footage shot by Marquiss, drawing on Eldredge’s pattern of evolution as a cue for image-making processes and editing structures.

Named after acclaimed Scottish experimental filmmaker Margaret Tait, Glasgow Film Festival’s annual award is supported by Creative Scotland and LUX, and recognises Scottish artists and Scotland-based artists who work within film and moving image in an experimental and innovative way.