Evanescent

'The cinema is the space in which bodies and spectres, both real and fantastic, meet. It is the space of a new becoming-body.' Roberta McGrath

Series of stills from Evanescent



To view the piece click here

Footnotes:
After looking through the footage to harvest stills last week, I had an idea of how it could develop into a piece in its own right. The frame rate has been reduced, giving a sense of jerky, dislocated movement. (I will try filming again later in the year for the breath piece.)

The Distance Between Points1

'The individual moment or image is valuable only insofar as its ripples spread out and encompass the richness of many moments.' Maya Deren



Footnotes:
Filmed in March and July of last year at Trent Park, I'm beginning to gather filmed images which will be intercut with the 'handwashing' footage. Performers are Maddy Tongue and myself.

spiro1

'I think art is the expression of the internal physiology of the artist.' Stan Brakhage



Footnote:
These stills are from my second attempt to work with an idea of movement generated by the impulse of breath, and were filmed at Trent Park in October . (The first attempt turned into 'An Undoing of Time') I may use some of this footage, but will film again to try to refine the idea further.

flow

'What is created and what appears is a unique interplay of fluid, ever-changing forces, a dynamic and cohesive flow of energy, not in the sense that the dancers continually change relationships and positions, but because the dancers and the dance are one.' Maxine Sheets-Johnstone

Series of stills from Flow:



To view the piece click here

Footnotes:
This footage emerged from my first attempt to work with the kinetic empathy idea, filming in Studio A at Trent Park in June '05. A long improvisation, filmed with a hand-held camera, was edited down into six very short fragments. I tried to include them in The Grammar of Presence, but they didn't belong as part of that piece at all, and I'd given up on the idea of using them. Looking at the series of stills they generated, I was encouraged to try the idea of working with the fragments, building them as an accumulation, which slows down with each repetition. I like the fact that initially-familiar movement content changes radically over the course of the piece.

kinetic empathy

'Objective movement acts as a physiological stimulus...representations of movement do cause a stir in deep bodily layers.'
Siegfried Kracauer

Series of stills from Kinetic Empathy



To view the piece click here

Footnotes:
My second attempt at this idea was filmed at Trent Park in October, exploring the issue of whether kinetic empathy can be experienced within a screenbased context. Many will argue that it can't, but I'm in agreement with Siegfried Kracauer in thinking that it is possible to provoke a physiological viewing response to screenbased movement. The piece was edited down from a very lengthy improvisation, and demonstrates my own rhythmic improvisatory patterns. Ambient sound was also used, and I like that odd bits of breathing can be heard at different points, and Jake can be heard asking ,'how's your stamina?' as the soundtrack ends.

connctive tissue4 : woolgathering

'A work of art is a skin for an idea.' Maya Deren



Footnotes:
More hands. Filmed at Trent Park in October, I experimented with a homage to the wool-winding sequence in Maya Deren's Ritual in Transfigured Time, and the colour of the wool emerged very vividly. Hands mainly belong to Dominique Bulgin.

Duet Form1

'What still inspires me most is the capacity of cinema to create new, magical realities by the most simple means, with a mixture of imagination and ingenuity in about equal parts.' Maya Deren




Footnotes:
I tried out an idea - a duet for two hands (both of them mine) - filming at Trent Park in October, and improvising my movement. I didn't get quite what I needed with the footage, but I really like the series of stills that it generated. I think that the piece requires some actual, old-fashioned choreography, in the sense of making repeateable movement content, which I will have to pre-plan before I resume filming.

Expanse

'Any huge close-up reveals new and unsuspected formations of matter...Such images blow up our environment in a double sense: they enlarge it literally, and in doing so, they blast the prison of conventional reality, opening expanses which we have explored at best in dreams before.' Siegfied Kracauer

Selection of stills from Expanse:



To view the piece click here

Footnotes:
Filmed at Trent Park in October. I particularly like the way that the visual effect worked with the movement, (and with the detail it brings out in Dominique's hair) and fits with the morse-code-like soundtrack. Performed by Dominique Bulgin