This film is constructed upon the visual poetry between what you hear and see, and a sensual fluidity that is not based on the cause and effect relationship. It casts away the practicalities and the functionalities commonly defined in real-world objects by returning things to their raw state, and guiding the viewer’s awareness to the finer details, while intertwining layers of poetic imagery.
Returning to the primal source of language, Hill explores the physical and subconscious origins of speech. In a continuous shot of a rhythmic, linguistically inspired chant-performance by George Quasha and George Stein, the camera wanders from mouth to face to hands to figure in an open-ended visual search. The performers use the body as an acoustic instrument of sound and abstract utterances.
1980-81, 13:27 min, b&w, sound Videograms is an ongoing series of text/image constructs or syntaxes using the Rutt/Etra Scan Processor, a device that enables Hill to sculpt electronic forms on the screen. Each "videogram" relates literally or conceptually to Hill's accompanying spoken text, which is visually translated into abstract shapes. Hill writes, "The vocabulary and precision of this tool allowed me to expand the notion of an 'electronic linguistic' through textual narrative blocks created specifically for the electronic vocabulary inherent in the Rutt/Etra device."
An attempt to constitute a human / machine dialogue. It shows the filmmaker’s blood as seen / heard with the eyes / ears of the machine which is a film projector with optical sound. He affixed his blood onto clear film leader by cutting into the flesh and then pressing the film leader onto the wound. Additionally he had blood taken with a syringe and afterwards dripped it on the film leader. fresh and clotted blood was used.
A meek office worker finds himself flung into a fantasy world as a naked muscleman. An early version of the Den character, known from the comic magazine Heavy Metal and the movie by the same name.
Combines animation and documentary footage to illustrate the origins and impact of the musical genres Bomba and Plena in Puerto Rican culture.
The life and career of Puerto Rican tenor Antonio Paoli, also known as The King of Tenors and The Tenor of Kings.
Combines animation, documentary footage, and hand-painted film as well as slide projections, a painted 12" x 24" backdrop, and sculptural palm tree to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Puerto Rican psyche.
First part of the Trilogy of the Island in which Poli Marichal expresses and vents the anger and frustration caused by the colonial situation.
Hand painted, scratched Super 8 film meditating on Puerto Rico's political status through the layering of traditional Bomba music and governmental speeches.
Experimental film which incorporates a range of materials, ink, coloring pencils, watercolors, and graphite, to narrate the story of a woman who is transformed into a cat while she drinks the celebrated beverage of the island, coffee.
Musings about what it means to travel, let the imagination fly, and to escape from reality. Combines documentary footage, animation on paper, and hand-painted and scratched film.
A completely new story based on existing footage from the series Columbo.
Documentary about how the arrival of the railway industry impacted Puerto Rican culture economically, socially, and humanistically during the first half of the 20th century. It includes photos by Jack Delano, among others, and scenarios to reconstruct the experience of what could have been the last trip made by train from San Juan to Ponce in 1953.
The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
After a dizzying trip through the cosmos we see how an astronaut is flung into space. Rudderless, irrevocably heading for the eternal black hole. The images originate from existing films such as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the soundtrack offers no redemption.
A contemporary man in the eye of the cyclone created by information. He finds no support for his hands and feet. It’s like in a poem by Tadeusz Rozewicz (‘falling in every direction’), he turns to dust when his time finally comes.
The final 17 years of American singer and musician Karen Carpenter, performed almost entirely by modified Barbie dolls.
Experimental film.
A short experimental film; "An hommage to silent movies".