I hope y’all will indulge me in a personal post here. I’m debuting some short videos tonight in Fayetteville. For the last year or so, I’ve been working on a new body of, well, work. Video links after the jump.
WordPress doesn’t support Vimeo embeds, so just follow the links, if you would. Here are four of the eight that were in the show.
Your solipsism is forgiven.
I’m quite partial to “Andy’s Dream.”
I really enjoyed these, Sam. (Though I had to follow wires to find my buried speakers and set them up again). Especially appreciate how well you show the obsessive nature of process. I thought ‘Junk’ would be more anatomical
I really liked the interplay between the semi-transparent paper and the (is stop-motion a semi-transparent film process?)
Both technique and material seem to perforate time in some way, and I think you used them well.
the short form and unapologetic enticing beauty of these make them seem like a commercial for sitting back and just feeling transcendental. I almost want to call them poems more than i want to call them video art, especially Eternal Striver.
Thanks, y’all!
And thanks for the suggestion, Carla. Junk II may wind up with a NSFW warning, wink wink.
Banole–there’s no film involved, actually. It’s all digital photographs, but I use a lot of translucent vellum paper, and transparency sheets.
Howdy to Chu!
Sam, talk a little more about the process. I said I want to call them poems because there really seems to be some kind of cadence that happens where the images are separate, but some element of one image will flow in to the next or even the one after the next. the same goes for the audio elements and even inexplicably a feeling of transition between one sound and the next image or vice versa.
So I’m curious about the process. Is the sequence of images something you play around with? How much planning and how much improvising is there? I assume there is a certain amount of trial and error/happy accident? Is it more random than it looks?
The separate/together cadence thing is very intentional, and somewhat stolen. I learned it from watching Stan Brakhage films. An image is present just long enough to register as a still image, and then moves to the next. How I achieve it is different, though.
The part of it that’s mine is that they’re deliberately in-process compositions. So one thing is leading to another, each frame is a response to the last frame. But I do occasionally chop up segments and re-arrange them, or cut out parts when the development takes too long (the darkening light in the first part of ‘Junk’ is an example of that). There is certainly an amount of happy accident, but I wouldn’t say randomness. Or, to follow your assessment, they’re as random as poems are. I try to be open to the circumstances, and also to expose the limitations. When an idea goes much differently than planned, I really learn something. That’s part of it. And there are some videos that are more troublesome than others…
WOW! so entertained over here