Cameraless film experiments
This year, as part of my degree, I’ve been playing a lot with 16mm and Super8 film. I’ve developed a sort of habit you could say, especially on the side of cameraless film. This is working directly onto film, almost like a canvas. So far the results have been pretty interesting as you are forced by the nature of the medium and the way its being used (that is, without a camera) to experiment.
The following image (down below) is of a small amount of the work, made by painting and dying directly onto clear 16mm film. After projecting it, it received comments such as “lush”, “scary” and “organic”. Pretty much was I was going for.
As I mentioned, the medium seems to demand experimentation. This was some what hammered home to me by artist Louise Curham. She was an Artist in Residence at the University of Wollongong recently, and her practice essentially experimentation in film. Through watching her work, performance and listening to her talk about her practice, I discovered I needed to make mistakes with my work through experimentations. Not only experiment in the work, but also in its performance. I seem to be moving towards film as a performance medium rather than one of recording and documentation. I can very much see myself ‘”DJing” with film/projectors, different from a VJ and definitely more towards the DJ side of performance. What that actually means is yet to be tested…
I absorbed a lot from Louise and it has come out in interesting experiments in the film medium.
Posted in Art Marking, Experimentation, Work In Progress on May 16th, 2008 by Robot Disco | |
on May 19th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Dang that stuff looks awesome!! It is all very suitable that I’m looking at your art while eating brunch in a French arty cafe. Dude, this Caesar Salad is a work of art: who ever heard of stuffed olives in a Caesar salad??? But yeah, the ambiance here totally set off your work for me ::P
So when the hell am I gonna see you online, eh??? EH!!!???
Ah well, time to end this decadent lifestyle I’ve had going on for the weekend here in Jakarta. Time to get on a plane back to dull old poor student life in Yogya. To make Yogya more bearable, drop me a line sometime, eh??
on June 13th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Hey hey, time for a second comment.
I thought you might be interested to know what your ‘cameraless film experiments’ reminds me of. I’ve been reading a tonne of manga since I arrived in Indo (one book costs less than $1.50), and I’ve come across this truly unique manga artist, Tsutomu Nihei. He’s most famous for his series ‘Blame!’ (pronounced ‘blam’, as in a gunshot) and ‘Snikt!’. Most of his books/series are set in a sort of futuristic dystopia. The characters and backgrounds are a weird mix of mechanics and organics, which is what your film art reminds me of. And the coloured art of Nihei’s totally reminds me of the colour scheme of your art.
To see what I mean, I really, really suggest that you download Snikt! or Blame! scanlations (they’re on a few torrent sites, just look up Tsutomu Nihei). To make it all the more appealing, Snikt! is actually a miniseries done by Nihei for MARVEL comics - Snikt! is the sound Wolverine’s claws make when they come out from his knuckles! SICK!
So yeah, just a random reflection on your art and my favourite manga artist