Film Night

Photography by Rebecca Crosbie

We had a great turn out for the Film Night on Friday 27th, it was wonderful to see prints by Guy Sherwin, Nicky Hamlyn and Ken Jacobs projected in the space; alongside work from UCA including Siobhan McManmon, Cassandra Vervoort and Gareth Polmeer.

Interior shots of 5-9

Photography by Sebastian Edge

Installation shots from 5-9

 Outside view of projectionsfrom left, Conor Kelly, Dominic de Vere and Sebastian Edge and Cathy Rogers Photograph by Rebecca Crosbie

Inside Installation Shots of Scotopic and 14:11(super 8 pinhole)
photography by Sebastian Edge

Scotopic

Stills from Scotopic which will be shown at 5-9 opening Tuesday 24th November, at The Powerhub, St Peters Street, Maidstone.

www5-9.org.uk

Late Shift - Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art

I'm back showing some work for the Late Shift at the SCVA in Norwich on Wednesday 18th November 5pm - 8pm. However, film not arrived back from the lab, should be here 12.30pm on Wednesday, I'll then be jumping on a train with a projector under my arm hot footing it up to Norwich - with any luck!

Liz Ballard the curator always lines up a good programme - see it here http://www.scva.org.uk/whatson/late_wednesdays/index.php?id=803

If all goes to plan, this is what the work's about.

Almost, There

Super 8mm, B&W, silent,

 

This work is a response to a painting by Charles Maussion, titled ‘The Valley of the Lakes No. 1’ which is held in the Sainsbury Centre collection.

As in Maussions’ work this film questions the nature of representation in this case implied through lens based media.

In ‘Almost, There’ we are presented with a number of scenes in which the camera lens is pulsing in and out of focus against the picture plane; almost but not quite presenting an in-focus image of the represented scene beyond the lens.

 

5-9 Site Specific Film and Video Projections

24 - 28 November, open daily 5pm - 9pm

Unit B9, The Powerhub, St. Peters Street, Maidstone, Kent, ME16 0ST

Nr. Maidstone East Train Station (60 mins from Victoria, London or 50 mins from London Bridge) 

5 – 9 is a show of new, site specific, film and video by Dominic de Vere and Sebastian Edge, Stavros Gangos, Nicky Hamlyn, Conor Kelly and Cathy Rogers.

Most of the work has been made in or for the Powerhub, an imposing former commercial vehicles factory, situated by the river Medway in Maidstone and viewable from Maidstone East railway station. The building is used both as a springboard, subject and venue for the work and the opening time of 5pm to 9pm is intended to exploit the dusk to nightime light of the semi-industrial urban landscape on this part of the river. 

All the work is designed to be projected onto the windows of the gallery, and can be viewed from the railway footbridge opposite, as well as from inside the building. This exhibition results from a collaboration between staff and graduates of the MA in Artists’ Film Video and Photography at the University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone.

Private View and Film Night

Friday 27th November 2009 open from 5pm

Films showing from 7.30pm

Free entrance / bar available

Programme includes film projections of:

Night Train

Railings

Da Capo: Variations On A Train With Anna 
Guy Sherwin

Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896 (3D)
Ken Jacobs
Pro Agri 
Nicky Hamlyn

and a selection of work from lecturers and students of UCA Maidstone

including work by Gareth Polmeer, Siobhan Mcmanmon and Anthony O'Donnell

Supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council England, University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone and FrancisKnight

1st Experiments

Making a pinhole camera the length of a roll of super 8mm (15m) is crazy!

Experimenting with 45cm lengths and multiple holes, really fiddly getting film in and out of the camera (I don't have a dark room so I've made a make shift changing bag out of think black rubble bags).  1st experiment, exposure not long enough!

Tried the same approach with a 120 roll of Provia 100ASA reversal film - some success!  This is one image from a strip of 3.

Super 8mm Pinhole

I'm working a piece for the Powerhub Project which is essentially a 15m long pinhole camera to take a reel of super 8.  I want to capture a train arriving at Maidstone East Station in one exposure (multiple apertures), and the length of the reel of film.

A couple of weeks ago I was wandering the corridors of The Powerhub taking single frame shots of the shadows of the window frames on the floor, for projection at probably 18 fps, I realised that the single frame strategy I've adopted recently is in escense a desire to break down the environment around me, but it's more than that, I want to see the whole of something in an instant, in one go and feeling that when projected that this will satisfy the desire.

On returning back to the unit where the exhibition/installation will be shown, Stavros was filming on his new 16mm Bolex camera and had left a length of 16mm on the table.  I glanced up as a slow approaching train drew into the platform, and at that moment, I knew what I wanted to make for the show.  I wanted to capture the horizontal movement onto the whole length of a roll of 8mm as the train moved along the tracks onto the platform.

Yesterday we got back from a trip to Vienna and a day before our trip I checked the Viennese Tourist Information site and discovered that the Viennale was on while we were there and under the experimental section, this guy Philipp Fleischmann was show his film - I couldn't believe my eyes and excitment when I saw what I could only decipher as a film pinhole experiment.

http://www.viennale.at/en/programm/

At 24 frames per second the human eye is able to perceive a moving image - and thus creates the prerequisite for the most important effect of the illusionary game called "cinema". Philipp Fleischmann breaks with this illusion by using a complex technique that no longer makes film appear as a succession of single images, but - by way of comparison - like an image created in one go. In fact, however, the effect is so unique that it cannot be compared with anything at all. Except, perhaps, with the dissolution of space gravity.

This film is part of the short film program Kurzfilmprogramm 2.

I met Philipp after the screening and asked him how he made the film (a diorama with two 16mm films inside one facing out towards a wooded area, one facing inwards with friends on the inside of the diorama).

The resulting film in projection is an amazing re-spatialisation (the film is projected as normal ie without turning the project on its side so the image is at a 90 degree angle, rotated to the right) of the wood with people stood inside the diorama which assumes a 3d quality to it.

My first test today, of my super 8mm pinhole, development later!

Working in Unit B9

Stavros, Seb and myself were in the space yesterday.  See Seb's timelapse.

www.sebastianedge.blogspot.com

We're Back - Film Space Architecture

A new project in The Powerhub has started with Lottery funding from Arts Council England, South, FrancisKnight and University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone.

Six artists, Nicky Hamlyn, Conor Kelly, Sebastian Edge, Stavros Gangos, Dominic De Vere and myself will be making new work in response The Powerhub Building and in particular Unit B9 (the soon to be home of a new project space by FrancisKnight - funding pending!).

The final works will be screened over five evenings  and as  part of the event there will be a film night showing work by Guy Sherwin, Ken Jacobs and possibly Richard Serra along with a selection of student filmmakers from UCA Maidstone.

Come back for more details soon.....

Old E6 Chemistry

The image was orignally of a blue strip light wrapped around a black iron frame in O'Neills in Leytonstone. This scan doesn't do the true colours justice, for in projection, the colours are yellow (background that was originally dark) and blue. This was shot on in date Ektachrome 64T.

Out of Date E6 Chemicals

I've just processed some film with some out of date chemicals with intriguing results. It was a test film for next week's film night, shot in the Music Room at O'Neills. I knew the chemicals were out of date and it was an experiment, but wasn't quite prepared for yellow and blue images.

I'll post some stills on Sunday.

Artists' Film and Video - 6th July

I'm organising an Artists' Film and Video night which is part of the Leytonstone Festival. It's Monday 6th July 8pm £3.00 entry at The Music Room, O'Neills, 762 High Road, Leytonstone. Supported by The Leytonstone Film Club.

Modern Painters

I read a really good article in the May edition of Modern Painters by Laura Mulvey about a filmmaker called Mark Lewis. Lewis is interested in the old Hollywood technique of rear projection and he stages acts or scenes using this method. Mulvey talks about how the 'oblique' re-use of old technologies, used within an art context brings a new significance to this 'old' device.

However, what really grabbed me were the notions around space, time, figure ground relationships and representation. Lewis draws links back to Renaissance painting and their use of 'a central figure shown against a spatially aggregated background' ( Laura Mulvey, 2009, Mark Lewis: Exploring the Mirage behind the movie star, Modern Painters, New York p.61 )'and the disjunction or disorientation that this provides. Lewis cites, The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin by Jan Van Eyck as an example of this 'spatially aggregated background'.

But the thrust of the article is based around how the old can become the 'new' new.
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225618&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225618&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500812&baseIndex=118&bmLocale=en

Three films by Nicky Hamlyn

Nicky Hamlyn is showing three films at University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone on 13th May at 4pm in the Lecture Theatre.

White Light, 16mm, colour and black and white, 22 minutues, silent, 1996
Sequences and interruptions, 16mm, colour, silent, 18 minutes, 2008
Pro Agri, 16mm, colour, 2 minutes, silent 2008

TEA SESSIONS are free and run by Anna Fernandez De Paco: www.ucreative.ac.uk

London Perambulator

I attended my brothers screening of the London Perambulator on Wednesday night at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (part of the East End Film Festival). The London Perambulator is a documentary about our relationship with the edgelands of the city, the under-imagined liminal spaces at the fringe of London. This is the city that we deny, overlook, malign. But it is in these spaces that we find the key to the true soul of the city, it’s past and it’s future. (www.nationalpsychogeographic.com). I see the film as essentially a portrait of a guy called Nick Papadimitriou who walks the 'liminal spaces' of London and is obsessed by water courses and mogden purification works. We see him in his own archive in his flat, to wandering the alleys and streets around north west London. Wilf Self, Ian Sinclair and Russell Brand all offer their own stories about Nick and their associations with him. This film is loosely based on pyschogeography although Nick hates this term and has coined his own 'Deep Topography' which Sinclair has openly admitted that he's now adopted. Some interesting comments were brought up about linking geography and time and at the end of the film Nick declares that all he could ever really hope for is that when he dies, he becomes Middlesex; his corporeal being melting and becoming one with the landscape.

Johnny and I started on our explorations of place back in 2004 with a project in High Wycombe, called 'Remapping High Wycombe' (there's a link further down under collaborations). Sitting in the auditiorum in 2009 watching a touching portrait of a man who embodies everything we ever wanted to say about how place can affect a human being I'm really proud of him. It's through his passion, tenacity, down right hard work and perseverance that he's produced this beautiful little film.

Elizabeth McAlpine at Laura Bartlett

I visited the Laura Bartlett Gallery last week to see Liz McAlpine's show 'Flatland'. I was welcomed in even though I turned up on a day that the gallery was closed and greeted with silent projectors . These were swiftly turned on.

http://www.laurabartlettgallery.co.uk/Exhibition-current/96#

For me, the most engaging aspect of the show were the machines and their setup. A tower of projectors placed in prime sight at the convergence of a narrowing entrance hall, drew one in for closer inspection. The projected image held little allure against the rig of the machines. Downstairs in a basement two projectors side by side projected 2 frames of a piece of string drawn horizontally across the middle of each, not quite lining up. I understand through the text that this tension was deliberate, but I couldn't help being irked by the fact that the first frame was a different size to the second and so my belief that this tension existed was somehow dispelled as I could see the unravelling of this construct.

What did make me smile though was that even through the obvious containment of film within a sculptural context (the fact that the projectors were left to whir away in these white rooms and you the viewer where meant to enter and leave but always be presented with this object, silently always producing its reason for being) did start to revolt. One projector was jumping and clattering, getting louder, and a frame of film was burnt onto the bulb of one of the 'Tilt (in 6 parts)' frames, so burnt acetate was a constant image.

This is an interesting show and a reminder that the beauty of super 8 lies in it's fragility and spontaneity.

Pan on OnSuper8.org

The wonderful people at onsuper8.org have put Pan on their Blip.TV channel. They are very kind.

http://onsuper8.blogspot.com/2009/04/pan-on-podcast.html

http://www.onsuper8.org

http://onsuper8.blogspot.com

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

The experience of setting up my work for the late shift was interesting for me. No chance to spend hours deliberating over siting the work and arrangement. I showed 'I Surround You' (3 super 8 loops) and 'Film Loop' in the education room on the lower ground floor of the centre, all opaque white glass and electronic screens. While outside in the corridor video works were projected on the floor and the walls. Upstairs in the fantastic cafe, main exhibition area the bands played and poetry and performance were in full swing.

What an amazing space and collection, the most democratically designed gallery, education space and museum I've ever been too. We were completely bowled over by the Giacometti's, Franics Bacons', Picasso and Charles Maussion, who's inspired me to make a film about the centre, so hopefully I'll be going back to make and show more work.

The Late Shift

I'm showing a couple of super 8 loop installations at The Late Shift, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at UEA tomorrow night. Liz Ballard curates and programmes after hours arts 'happenings'. My first visit to Norwich and looking forward to it.

The Late Shift

Late Wednesday Open Art Event

Wednesday 15 April

5pm – 8pm

Price: free

FILM

MUSIC

PERFORMANCE

POETRY

Explore art after hours and enjoy a mix of performance, poetry, music and more from emerging visual artists in the region.

Featuring

Keyboard and guitar based songs from collaborative duo Amrita & The Boy With Two Heads

Artist films by Jonathan Watts, Matthew Robinson and Tim Dodd presented within the China China China exhibition

An installation by Cathy Rogers with super 8 exploring the formal qualities of film

Live acoustic music from Simon Hallett & Axel Loughrey

A performance by Gaelin Little & Mari Joyce exploring the boundaries of physical experience and the intangible

Poetry from John Brown

Tom Hardman performing a set of original acoustic songs with classical guitar

why not soak up the atmosphere with a light snack and a drink in our Gallery Café?

For more information about events at the Sainsbury Centre email scva@uea.ac.uk,

telephone 01603 593199 or visit the website www.scva@uea.ac.uk

New Work

It's time to make new work. Slowly re-energising and thinking about strands from FLOW that I want to take forward. Film Loop (overhead projector and broken super 8 loop) and a very old roll of super 8 sound film are calling. Cross Channel Ferries and Opticians devices for seeing into the eye are intriguing me as sites and areas of investigation.
Housewatch - a banner under which a collective (started by Ian Bourn)projected in domestic spaces; Leytonstone Festival and making work for a potential screening event and creating oportunites for artists to show work in Maidstone. Lots to think about - better put the coffee on..

TEA Session

TEA is a weekly video and film seminar series set up by Anna and Linus at University for the Creative Arts in Maidstone. Each week artist filmmakers are invited to show their work and talk about their practice for an hour, after which it's down the pub for a cup of TEA?!

Anna kindly invited me to show some work which I did along with a programme of works that have inspired my practice.

So far; Nicky Hamlyn and Conor Kelly, Neil Henderson, Jonathan Whitehall, Woodrow Kernohan, Gareth Polmeer and Ian Helliwell have presented works. The programme resumes after the Easter break.

FLOW Time Lapse

My Installations

FLOW - Jan 2009
The Powerhub, Maidstone, Kent

I Surround You

Film Loop


‘I surround you’ is a three projection installation informed by the Martello Towers that line the south coast between Folkestone and Eastbourne. Only 25 out of the 74 built remain. Their form, relationship to each other and spacing along the South Coast suggest symmetry to the relationship between frames and the filmstrip. Each tower is filmed alternately, frame by frame, in a pseudo exchange. Standing like abandoned sentinels, silently communicating with each other. In projection the resultant flickering loops portray a compression of the space between the towers and the impenetrable forts appear to be transparent.

'Film Loop' is a companion work consisting of an overhead projector enlarging a single strip of Super 8mm large enough to engulf the space and assume a loop position. The image is of a frame by frame pan from the roof of Seaford Museum, the 74th Martello Tower. The single frame presenting itself in its contained strip format, lays bear the continuity of the strip and its suggested notion of movement whilst amplifying the contents of its’ contained images.


MINE - September 2008
The Crypt, St. Pancras Church, London

Lightstep


Fremlin Walk, Maidstone, Kent

The Distance Between Us
One cycle of a super 8 loop of single frames taken down the length
of a cannon 60 - 7mm lens of Springfield Mill Chimney
Also presented at 35mm slides in a custom made lightbox.


Pan
A broken down pan (single frame) from within
the middle of Boughton Monchelsea Wood.