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!