Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Shadow Chase
Sometime in the latter half of last year Ana Cordeiro Reis (Hyaena Fierling) had asked me if I was interested in providing her with a half-an-hour of video footage that she could then compose to with a view to it being used in a live performance in the UK. Naturally the chance to work with her was all the motivation needed, and so we began discussions on the what, the where and the how.
I had recently had my work projected publicly for the first time (as opposed to being shown on a flat-screen TV in a gallery setting) and was thinking about the need to tailor the work to the environment in which it was to be shown, so my first questions were about where Ana was planning to perform. Locations in Birmingham and possibly The Gregson Institute in Liverpool were mentioned and I spent some time researching the type of places these were and the type of performances held in them, as well as looking at Ana's other recorded live performances on YouTube and Vimeo.
The spaces were fairly small and intimate (as opposed to stadium type) and the projection would not be on a huge scale. I had to consider peripheral lighting, possible people movement and that Ana would be weaving her magic against a backdrop of my imagery. To produce a narrative or anything too subtle seemed pointless, so the challenge was to make something visually interesting in such a setting over the space of half-an-hour as well as maintaining some continuity and having some alignment, if not meaning, with Ana's aesthetic.
We discussed via Skype a theme. Dreams, journeys, imaginary landscapes, juxtapositions...
Ana sent some footage via WeTransfer of road movies she had taken in Portugal and also some still images from her vast collection. I had also been working on footage from unrelated sources, so it was a matter of trying to find a balance between her suggestions and what I needed to maintain my interest and enthusiasm.
I had never made a video of this length before (10 minutes being the previous max). I also was used to working to a soundtrack, not in silence. I was not comfortable with using still images (seemed like a slide show) so I began merging the road movies with dream like snippets. At this point the combined footage ran for less than 20 minutes. I thought that to have some footage of Ana herself might be a nice touch, so that the audience could see that the film was specifically about her as opposed to some random imagery.
Over a few months life and work get in the way of the best laid plans. Other little projects crop up, ideas get modified, directions change. I was doing long road trips from one end of the state to the other, Ana was in UK one day, Portugal the next. Occasionally snippets would arrive, we continued our Skype discussions and I continued to try to build the film without really knowing what the soundtrack would be. I must admit at this time I was really struggling to maintain continuity, so when some more footage arrived of Ana dancing it became the catalyst to start bringing it all together. I compiled the film out to around 28 minutes and sent a rough cut back. I had called it 'The Dreams of Ana'.
It was only a matter of a few days when a 10 minute soundscape came back with the title of 'shadow chase'. From here on it gave me the direction I needed to start pulling it all together, and so began the tightening up and working out the colour harmonies and 'flow'. Also Ana sent some more footage of her hands and shadows which helped me to resolve issues I was having with the start and end. I got to a point where I thought that this was about as good as it is going to get, so sent off the second draft. She continued with finishing the composition, and so Shadow Chase was born...
The soundtrack will be released as part of an EP, and we will let you know when the live performances are likely to take place.
You can download the film from the Internet Archive here...
Our other collaborations have been:
Why is this happening?
The Illusion of Freedom
I forget you
Ana's website is: akousmata
I forget you
You can download the files from the Internet Archive here...
The soundscape is by Hyaena Fierling from her album super flumina Babylonis, available on Bandcamp here...
You can visit her website here...
The woman is Brigitte Schiller, from Lutz Mommartz's Die Schiller.
With thanks to all those who work in the Creative Commons...
Return to Reason
This mashup (like the title suggests) is a return to some of my favourite themes, and working again with the soundscapes of one of my favourite musicians (emptywhale), who I blame entirely for the development of my cinematic 'style'. The themes of eroticism, passion, death, decay, disintegration, decline and disorder combine in a (humble) homage to Man Ray...
The delightfully dulcet soundscape is From A Clear Sky taken from emptywhale's third album Some Hollow Lullabies. You can download it here...
The HD MPEG movie file on the Internet Archive can be downloaded here...
You can see all of my videos here...
ReArtVision
Well...it had to happen eventually. Bega catching up with the rest of the world that is. If not quite there yet with aesthetically pleasing architecture then at least the germ of a creative 'movement' that has been propelled by the current (and inaugural) Festival of the Face, an offshoot of the now national, and lucrative Shirley Hannan Portrait Award. And a major part of the transformation has been the 'occupation' of the old Retravision electrical retail store into a multidimensional art space.
Saturday night saw an 'event', hopefully among the first of many, where the pictures on walls concept was augmented by performance, films and music. And an opportunity for me to have some of my videos projected on the 'big' screen. Many thanks to Richard Maude and Tony Dean for making it all happen...
Saturday night saw an 'event', hopefully among the first of many, where the pictures on walls concept was augmented by performance, films and music. And an opportunity for me to have some of my videos projected on the 'big' screen. Many thanks to Richard Maude and Tony Dean for making it all happen...
The space transformed
Musician Dr Chris Korvin at the 'operating' table
Some of my photomontages
Still from 'Black Red White'
Still from 'Black Red White'
Still from 'Broken'
You can follow Festival of the Face on Facebook here...
Why is this happening?
This video is a result of my concerns over what is happening in the world in places like Ukraine and the plight of asylum seekers in Australia. It seems that 50+ years after the youth rebellion of the 60's that nothing much has changed. The fight for freedom of speech and expression goes on...
I am indebted to Hyaena Fierling Reich (aka Ana Cordeiro Reis) for the use of Dog Day Sunrise as the soundscape. This was originally released as part of the Classwar Karaoke - 0019 Survey compilation available for free download from the Free Music Archive here...
For more information about Ana go to her website here...
You can download the video from the Internet Archive here...
You can view all the videos here...
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Malena Szlam Salazar - Jerusalem In My Heart
Came across this via Twitter (thanks Griet!) from the the wonderful Mindpirates group. In a world where audio-visual now seems synonymous with computers it is great to see an artist using celluloid strips and old projectors. Beautifully done...more on Mindpirates soon.
BTW you can follow us on Twitter here...
who is anonymous waves?
UPDATE (March 1 2014) Since this article was first published the blog known as Bob Georgeson has been transformed into the anonymous waves website, therefore some of the ideas have been superseded and the links below may no longer work. The article has been left intact for archival reasons.
Well it's me (sort of), but that doesn't explain why. The idea started back in late 2012 after discussing aspects of collaboration with emptywhale. I had been impressed by what seemed like the growing number of creators working across different disciplines, and while musicians were often used to collaboration as a matter of course, it was largely infrequent among visual artists. With an increasing interest in audio-visual creations such as video I felt that to publish works under my name alone was a disservice to those whose work I 'appropriated'. The idea 'gelled' rapidly with the discovery of UbuWeb and the Internet Archive and the Creative Commons licensing principle, which enabled me to work with 'found' footage and sounds. A logical progression from my previous work in photomontage, and where my love of music could now come to the fore. The name anonymous waves comes from a line of the Francis Picabia poem 'Anecdote', pulished in 1918:
Anecdote
You see, I am crazy to imagine it
I am a man with nimble fingers
Who wants to cut the threads of old pains
False folds in my anxious brain
History in arabesques memories
I am only happy on the open sea
Where one goes further
On anonymous waves
Francis Picabia, from Poèmes et dessins de la Fille née sans mère 1918
The first cut of the website came into existence as a 'visual poem' loosely based around the poem, and used a variety of images, both my own and public domain. It also assumed a level of web browser knowledge of the user and content was there to be 'discovered' rather than 'fed'. While I liked the site it seemed that very few others shared my enthusiasm! During 2013 I also started a Netlabel housed on the Internet Archive, the idea to have a repository for all my collaborative work. I had been unhappy with the template restrictions of this blog in the way that my videos were embedded and displayed, so decided to rebuild the anonymous waves (a/w) site as a 'front end' for the Archive repository. Getting a .org domain name was easy, mapping it to the site less so (are you listening Google?).
And so the build began. I had envisaged that as a/w developed that this present blog (and Bob Georgeson) would be subordinated and fade off into the blogosphere, but ah, the best laid plans! Just as soon as I planned this I started getting a lot more cross postings and traffic. Popularity is very hard to ignore let alone dismiss. The outcome of all this? There is a role for both sites. This blog continues much as it has over the past two years (24,000 plus page views in that time) while the a/w site is the front end for future creative pursuits, and I hope further and future collaboration with some of the extraordinary artists and musicians I have met in that time.
The anonymous waves website is simple in structure with minimal text (cynical readers might breathe a sigh of relief!). The Video page is roughly sequential and makes available the films at a good presentation size (you can go to the Internet Archive by clicking on the I/A icon should you wish to download the files). The Art page comprises graphics created at 640x640 pixels (CD size) for free use and the offer of design and typography skills. The Music page is stuff I listen to, and am influenced (and inspired) by, predominantly in video format and includes such gems as Dizzy Gillespie, Marcus Miller, Marilyn Mazur, emptywhale and Hyaena Reich to name a few. The Projects page lists current ideas and their status like the anonymous waves shopfront proposal. The Writing page is poetry I like and has the 'not to be missed' sound file of e.e cummings reading his masterpiece anyone lived in a pretty how town. Contact details are there (you can also follow us, and be followed, on Twitter), and finally The Other Side, a gallery of suitably deranged influences and hero worship. Bunuel, Arp, Picabia and the patron saint of the site Ulrike Meinhof.
In a time of a global push to the far right Ulrike's knowing look reminds us of the price of freedom...
And why do all this? Well, exposure on an international level, making art available (for free) to a wide range of people, challenging oneself, subverting the traditional power structures in the art and music worlds are a few reasons, but most of all because it's fun. Ideas for collaboration welcome...
kaspar is dead
You can download the (higher definition) files here: https://archive.org/details/KasparIsDead
You can view all the videos on the Internet Archive here...
The Origins of Life
Video mashup where contemporary dance meets the denizens of the deep in a visual poem about creativity and the emergence of life in the sea, and the womb...
You can download the files here...
Louise Brooks
It was love at first sight when I first encountered Louise in the bookshelves of the Dickson Library back around 1989. Like many I was at once intrigued and then captivated by this iconographic star, or, as the book that I discovered called her, an 'anti-star'. Her story has been well documented and there are numerous devotional sites out there, and I am not about to join their ranks. Search if you don't know the story. Louise remained a very erudite and beautiful woman, and a cat lover, into her later life.
I was fascinated coming across the documentary below of her time in Europe working with the great director G.W. Pabst. Titled 'Lulu in Berlin' it offers an animated and honest insight into the making of 'Pandora's Box' and subsequent films, as well as Berlin in the 20's...
Louise Brooks
It was love at first sight when I first encountered Louise in the bookshelves of the Dickson Library back around 1989. Like many I was at once intrigued and then captivated by this iconographic star, or, as the book that I discovered called her, an 'anti-star'. Her story has been well documented and there are numerous devotional sites out there, and I am not about to join their ranks. Search if you don't know the story. Louise remained a very erudite and beautiful woman, and a cat lover, into her later life.
I was fascinated coming across the documentary below of her time in Europe working with the great director G.W. Pabst. Titled 'Lulu in Berlin' it offers an animated and honest insight into the making of 'Pandora's Box' and subsequent films, as well as Berlin in the 20's...
Violette
An audio-visual tribute to author Violette Leduc...
soundscape: Cousin Silas and emptywhale
eyescape: anonymous waves
'Mapping the Void' by Cousin Silas and emptywhale is taken from the album Silas and Friends Volume 1 released on the weareallghosts label. You can find it on the Archive here...
For the HD downloadable video files go to its page on the Archive here...
Cindy
soundscape: The Implicit Order
eyescape: anonymous waves
This mashup was inspired by the track Cindy (Model Unit One) Drone Disco Remix by The Implicit Order, a prolific experimental artist hailing from the USA. I had done a review of his disturbing album 'Drifters' in an earlier post. You can check out The Implicit Order here...
For the HD downloadable files of the video go to it's page on The Internet Archive here...
For all my videos on the Archive go here...
You can follow anonymous waves on Twitter here...
If you want to collaborate email surrealdada@gmail.com
eyescape: anonymous waves
This mashup was inspired by the track Cindy (Model Unit One) Drone Disco Remix by The Implicit Order, a prolific experimental artist hailing from the USA. I had done a review of his disturbing album 'Drifters' in an earlier post. You can check out The Implicit Order here...
For the HD downloadable files of the video go to it's page on The Internet Archive here...
For all my videos on the Archive go here...
You can follow anonymous waves on Twitter here...
If you want to collaborate email surrealdada@gmail.com
Drinking from the same cup
It is inevitable in the public domain that at some point in time artists and filmmakers will draw inspiration from the same sources. So, it was without surprise that I recently stumbled on the captivating face of Candace Hilligos featured in an article on UK zine Aesthetica's blog. The article referred to a film by Sara Brannan that had been shortlisted for the prestigious Aesthetica Art Prize in 2012. The film is called Mary, after the role that Candace plays in the wonderful 1962 cult 'horror' classic Carnival of Souls. The article can be found here...the video below:
I too had been entranced by Candace (and the film) and had used parts of it/her in my humble effort called The Lunar Machine, published online in October 2012. As a fledgling filmmaker the film had been something of a watershed for me, opening a door that I continue to walk through in working in the public domain and collaboratively (particularly with the brilliant dark ambient creations of UK muso emptywhale). Background to The Lunar Machine can be found here...the video below:
I had originally discovered The Internet Archive more by accident than design. A growing interest in video and film had been hampered somewhat by only owning a crappy little digital camera which took crappy little videos. I was searching for footage that I could experiment with, came across the Archive and discovered that there were plenty of people out there doing the same. I also discovered (via UbuWeb) the work of Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us) who had been working in the public domain as early as 1991 and who continues to be an inspiration. Vicki's archive can be found here...
But back to Sara Brannan. From Aesthetica: Sara's "work is based around the appropriation and manipulation of films in the public domain. Using them as a found object they are re-edited into short videos focusing on the female lead character. Only footage of the female alone in the frame is used; the rest of the film is removed and the images are edited together to run consecutively, following the chronological order of the original film. This re-editing interrupts the patriarchal narrative structure and makes visible the usually invisible editing that is demanded by realism. This restructuring provides the viewer with the opportunity to comprehend a new reality".
The precedent for this type of film making was set by American Surrealist Joseph Cornell back in 1936 with Rose Hobart, a film made from edits of the same named actress taken from an obscure 1931 B-movie called East of Borneo and coupled with an equally obscure soundtrack that Joseph found in a junk store. Of course Joseph edited by cutting and splicing real celluloid together, not enjoying the 'relative' ease of today's digital manipulation. The film is also famed for the story of its premiere where Salvador Dali reacted half way through screaming "bastard!' and overturning the projector, allegedly complaining later that Cornell had stolen the idea from his subconscious. A concept I am sure would be familiar to many artists! You can watch the film here...
I too had been entranced by Candace (and the film) and had used parts of it/her in my humble effort called The Lunar Machine, published online in October 2012. As a fledgling filmmaker the film had been something of a watershed for me, opening a door that I continue to walk through in working in the public domain and collaboratively (particularly with the brilliant dark ambient creations of UK muso emptywhale). Background to The Lunar Machine can be found here...the video below:
I had originally discovered The Internet Archive more by accident than design. A growing interest in video and film had been hampered somewhat by only owning a crappy little digital camera which took crappy little videos. I was searching for footage that I could experiment with, came across the Archive and discovered that there were plenty of people out there doing the same. I also discovered (via UbuWeb) the work of Vicki Bennett (aka People Like Us) who had been working in the public domain as early as 1991 and who continues to be an inspiration. Vicki's archive can be found here...
But back to Sara Brannan. From Aesthetica: Sara's "work is based around the appropriation and manipulation of films in the public domain. Using them as a found object they are re-edited into short videos focusing on the female lead character. Only footage of the female alone in the frame is used; the rest of the film is removed and the images are edited together to run consecutively, following the chronological order of the original film. This re-editing interrupts the patriarchal narrative structure and makes visible the usually invisible editing that is demanded by realism. This restructuring provides the viewer with the opportunity to comprehend a new reality".
The precedent for this type of film making was set by American Surrealist Joseph Cornell back in 1936 with Rose Hobart, a film made from edits of the same named actress taken from an obscure 1931 B-movie called East of Borneo and coupled with an equally obscure soundtrack that Joseph found in a junk store. Of course Joseph edited by cutting and splicing real celluloid together, not enjoying the 'relative' ease of today's digital manipulation. The film is also famed for the story of its premiere where Salvador Dali reacted half way through screaming "bastard!' and overturning the projector, allegedly complaining later that Cornell had stolen the idea from his subconscious. A concept I am sure would be familiar to many artists! You can watch the film here...
Of course, working in the public domain one is always conscious of copyright issues, and public domain can mean different things in different countries. I note that the Creative Commons people are still working on definitive licensing, but still have the underlying principle of the freedom to share non-commercially. This raises all sorts of issues about not only appropriation but appropriate use of material. Like Sara Brannan (to a degree) I believe that in montage whether it be moving images or still, that the aim is to create a new reality through transformation of the original sources. As Max Ernst said, in talking about the very beginnings of photomontage in the Dada days, "It is something like the
alchemy of the visual image. The miracle of total transfiguration of
beings and objects with or without modification of their physical or
anatomical appearance".
And the question of commercial or critical gain through working with and in the public domain? Well, today the movement to work collaboratively, for free, in the spirit of a non-commercial Web and making art accessible to as many people as possible is growing globally. Perhaps the last word should be left to Candace, being interviewed about an atrocious sequel to Carnival of Souls, "The only thing that scared me was the fact that
these people who made this movie thought that this would
sell!"
Maybe a little parable for us all?
Sara Brannan's website can be found here...
Carnival of Souls can be found on the Internet Archive here...
My videos on the Internet Archive are here...
emptywhale can be listened to and downloaded here...
Maybe a little parable for us all?
Sara Brannan's website can be found here...
Carnival of Souls can be found on the Internet Archive here...
My videos on the Internet Archive are here...
emptywhale can be listened to and downloaded here...
Sunk
I like this one that just seemed to evolve from one idea being explored and then another direction becoming apparent through chance encounters. w.out was active on the Archive circa 2004/5 which would make them one of the pioneers. What has happened since then I do not know, but if anyone does know, please let me know because I would be keen to explore new territories with them/him/her/it? And if you are interested in collaboration in the public domain please get in contact by emailing: surrealdada@gmail.com
You can get the HD and downloadable files here...http://archive.org/details/SunkPoem
emptywhale and anonymous waves - a collaboration (of sorts)
For the HD version and downloadable files go here...
Apologia: This one represents the closest I (we?) have come to online collaboration, and the first video where I actively tried to work in with the music in terms of the atmosphere it creates, without wishing of course to make a music video per se. Art always comes first! In discussions with emptywhale about process we agree that once a creation is in the public domain one relinquishes control over how it might be used other than the Creative Commons licensing that stipulates it is not to be used for commercial gain, and acknowledges the original source. We agree that collaboration can lead to opening new doors that might not have previously been considered or explored. And there is no approval process in place, although in making this I have been very conscious of what emptywhale will think. Our desire for approval from others is a very strong emotion! The start point is mutual admiration for each other's creativity, and the desire to learn...
So, what exists remains...
anonymous waves comes from a line in the poem "Anecdote" penned by Francis Picabia in 1918. It reads:
You see, I am crazy to imagine it
I am a man with nimble fingers
Who wants to cut the threads of old pains
False folds in my anxious brain
History in arabesques memories
I am only happy on the open sea
Where one goes further
On anonymous waves.
I had done an earlier interactive visual poem with anonymous waves as it's title but have now decided to make this my new pseudonym, and the launch of an umbrella for new projects, including new media, public domain activities, online collaborations, interventions, the creation of a Netlabel and the gradual archiving and replacement of this blog. Time to move on...