CAMERALESS FILM PRACTICE

My experimental cameraless films channel two main forms of expression and aesthetic inquiry: 

•Structural films: Graphic films yielding organic ethnographic autopoiesis (immersed in substances representing the local culture, then buried in the earth and unburied after one year of immersion), and experimental narratives made primarily with found footage.

•Direct-Animation films: additive and subtractive methods directly affecting the film’s emulsion.

Both these practices may be applied in the same film and the film may be combined with digital forms of image creation.

Art Practice of Cameraless Filmmaking and Found Footage Use:

I have collected 8mm and 16mm film footage over the years from which I create new contexts in experimental narrative and non-narrative films. The individual pieces from these various film sources may even be recognizable at times, but seen in a new context, immediately acquire new meaning or contribute its original symbols to a new significance. A lot of the source films I’ve collected fall under the category of found footage – discarded film considered useless by their owners. I construct new narratives out of other people’s discarded and dejected recorded memories, creations, and events. By using such footage in my work, I call under question the copyright issue for discarded materials, and what is considered fair use. Some of the films below follow this practice in whole or at least partially. Whereas an effort is made to locate the source of ownership of discarded materials, it is not always possible to find the author. The work I make under this practice is not meant for commercial distribution. 

If you’d like to donate footage, keeping this practice in mind, please email me. 

CATCH DU JOUR (2010)

Shown at FestArte Videoart Festival circuit starting at Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, and at OFF LOOP Festival in Barcelona.

Length: 10:00. Original Format: 16mm. Language: English

Catch du Jour is a parallel of hunter and the conquered prize, a game of seduction. The film is made entirely with found footage.

The making of Catch du Jour:

During the cataloguing of my entire film stock collection, a theme began to emerge where imagery from various sources seemed to follow a narrative of seduction and courtship, despite their very disparate sources: a Brazilian music video donated by a friend; portions of a documentary on Inuit hunting practices and tribal living, obtained from a communal film storage at The New School (NYC); film found in a flea market about a couple falling in love (research revealed it to be Alan Arkin’s Little Murders feat. Donald Sutherland); films purchased on Ebay of unknown content (revealed later to be vintage films of cowboys singing about not getting along with their wives and going to visit their mothers instead). 

The film construct process:

The film is made by hand: there are double layers glued to each other in parts, and all edited on a Steenbeck, including the audio. There is however, audio manipulation in post-production where I composed rhythmic sound art from the more abstract audio parts of the film and from the film sprocket noise recorded while playing it on a 16mm projector.

RADICAL DISCONTINUITY (2010) 

A graphic-novel style of experimental musical film performed for musicians Schloss Tegal. Length: 30:00, 20:00, 10:00 versions. Original Format: 16mm, CGI, mini DV. 

10-minute version of Radical Discontinuity

Radical Discontinuity is a psychogenic animated thriller executed in graphic novel style using symbolic imagery, while maintaining an abstract suggestive level. It is composed of mixed formats, 16mm film strips buried in the earth and manually affected in the direct-animation style of filmmaking, live action (DV format), and animation.

The film was a collaboration with the cult psychogenic/industrial sound artists of Schloss Tegal (Marc Burch and Richard Schneider). It has been performed live with different visual iterations depending on the order of tracks performed and the length of performances. Presented in New York and in Prague (XIV Prague Industrial Festival, an International Meeting of Avantgarde Artists and Musicians). 

MAKE THE GREEN GRASS GREENER (2010) 

Music Video for Artist Monta At Odds. Length: 4:04. Original Format: 16mm. 

Manipulation of found footage to create a narrative contemplating both the mundane and sublime moments at realizing the American Dream. A display of subjects’ simple conformity in everyday tableaus when attempting to make their green grass greener, an allusion to the song title.

AMERICA (2005) 

Live multisensorial cinema. A handmade film with some found footage inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s poem America.

Length: 5:43. Original Format: 16mm. 

The construction and deconstruction of the American Hero through the semiotics of American pop culture, which tends to create a cult of dead heroes. Tracing a parallel from some real and perceived heroic and now mythic figures from 60’s culture, JFK and Martin Luther King, Marylin Monroe and Elvis Presley, we arrive at George W. Bush, the antithesis of a hero to many, and to whom everything was given but nothing much was ever expected. An inversion of the meaning of sacrifice between the two Americas. 

Above are stills from a live recording of the film performance which used live pyrotechnics and olfactory design. Presented May 2005 at Rififi Cinema, East Village, NYC.

PLASMA (2004)

A direct animation 16mm film loop created using various subtractive and additive techniques applied directly on the film surface, such as peeling off the emulsion, collaging and painting. This film is part of an extended project involving the making of large scale prints from selected film frames. 

See PRINTS.

METAMORFOSE (2004)

Direct animation 16mm film created originally as an experiment. I buried a roll of raw 16mm film stock bare into the earth for 1 year (4 seasons) following a set of chance operations including bathing and spicing the film with liquid and solid substances before burial. 

Each film section (shipped to friends all over the world, then retrieved) is an abstract immersion in the singular context of each location where the film rolls have been buried. Some in dry, some wet land. Film matter as testing strips for soil composition. Soil speaks through film.