Garbage

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, abstraction - that most quintessentially modernist innovation - maintains a peculiarly contradictory position. Used, on one hand, by post-modernist artists as just one more quotable style amongst many, it is on the other hand still considered an elitist or hermetic language by audiences intimidated by its lack of recognizable subject matter. Yet ultimately, abstraction continues to be a viable creative path for contemporary artists of all generations, many of whom embrace it as the most inclusive and fundamentally resonant of artistic languages. Filmed at the artists' studios, the Dia Center for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Museum during their exhibition, "Abstraction in the Twentieth Century."

Sketch Film #5 (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2007, 3 min., super 8, silent, 18/24fps, b&w, USA) This is the last film in the series. I shot at the site of Marin Headlands County in California when I was an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Art. The footage shows the nature in the area, as well as the historic buildings originally built for the US Army, including batteries and the Nike Missile Site. It was all edited in camera and hand-processed afterwards.

Documentary short film depicting the filmmaking activity at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood, featuring dozens of stars captured candidly and at work.

An exploration of Rodez Cathedral and its stained glass windows: praying figures and scientific imagery. A study on color, repetition and flickering consisting of 292 photographs.

A condensation of a handful of sunsets with various visual moods. Red and blue as opposites that still find a way to cohere. Concrete silhouettes over an ever-changing, expanding canvas. Every movement is collective, molecular. Over an invisible horizon, a chance presents itself to meditate on the “speed” of water (and the sea) and also for a more fluid kind of editing.

Bernadette Corporation describes this work as "A fashion film about the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and the color white." Produced for the 2000 Walker Art Center exhibition Let's Entertain, this short film employs a range of strategies to approach the idea of nothingness, emptiness, and vacuity, with an eye to how these notions relate to contemporary mass-cultural entertainment. Juxtaposing "documentary" takes on a fashion shoot with footage of semiologist Sylvère Lotringer giving an impromptu lecture on Mallarmé on a frozen lake, Hell Frozen Over maintains an ambiguous stance from which to both critique and celebrate the power of surface.

Amongst the contemplative static shots of decaying architecture weaves an abstract narrative unveiling the life-cycle of a higher perception, too large to perceive. Shot at various sites across south-east England, INFRASTRATA is a study on the concept of super-organisms, and the relationship between structure and nature.

A Experimental Docu-Drama about the Red Army Faction's formation, and events leading up to their imprisonment and death, from 1970 to 1977.

A metallic cacophony resounds as Eric hunts for, and labours through, abandoned scrap. The sun beats down as his pick-up truck rumbles through the day.

An abstract and detailed observation of a young life told through a series of observational montages. Part of the 'Technicolour' series of films from Lot 108 Productions.

An abstract, surreal and experimental anthology consisting of five sequences exploring the themes of identity, the nature of existence and the human condition. Part I tells the story of a postapocalyptic world where a Man feeds the ocean his blood in order for the water to continue moving, Part II is an abstract interrogation of several concepts including love and loneliness - Part III sees several ordinary people interviewed and asked various existential questions, and Part IV and V further expand upon the surreal filmic techniques present in Part II, whilst continuing the delve into existentialism.

24

Belezas Brasileiras

Sketch Film #3 (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2006, 3 min., super 8, silent, 18/24fps, b&w, USA/Japan) The third film in the series, which starts with a sequence of paired images: a focused image and a blurred image of the same subject, which was caused by a diagonal camera movement. Later, it shows an experiment to produce an apparent depth by rotating an apparent shape. It was edited in camera and hand-processed afterwards.

Mudos testigos is a cinematographic collage made from all the surviving material of Colombian silent films, re-editing the images in such a way as to create a single imaginary film: the impossible love story of Efraín and Alicia that traces the convulsive first half of the twentieth century in Colombia. Compiled by the late Luis Ospina and finished posthumously by Jeronimo Atehortúa.

The fourth film in the series, for which I focused on colors and shapes. It was shot on Kodachrome, all edited in camera, and processed at Dwayne’s Photo.

Peter Hutton's New York trilogy. An act of urban archaeology, a chronicle of indelible impressions of the city.

An abstract perspective into two young South African workers in the heart of Johannesburg's industrial sector during Covid-19

Elam turns in place while filming nature.

"This is taking a Super 8mm camera around with me wherever I go and I'm very interested in windows at this time of travel, and I'm trying to make a variety of different statements about the concept of window." - S.B.