New Work in 'Seesound' This Saturday

Nothing Jumps Out at Me, an aggressively minimal experiment by John Godfrey and me, will play as part of the Seesound event at The Guesthouse this Saturday 17th. This is a day of new collaborations between sound and video artists. Also on the line up are collaborations between Dean Kavangah & Vicky Langan, and Rouzbeh Rashidi & Mick O'Shea.

For more details: 
http://www.theguesthouse.ie/index.php?/projects/current/

Experimental Conversations 10 Online

The latest issue of 'Experimental Conversations', Cork Film Centre's online journal of experimental film, art cinema and video art, is now online:

http://www.experimentalconversations.com/

This issue includes Fergus Daly on film noir, Tony McKibbin on Tabu, the first installments of an ongoing study of Cesare Zavattini by David Brancaleone, Gianluca Pulsoni on Mauro Santini, Alfonso Cariolato on Peter Hutton, Chris O'Neill's obituary of Tony Scott, and the second part of an overview of contemporary alternative cinema from Thailand. Plus the review section and a couple of notes by me on Jean Rollin. Enjoy!

Trailer for Michael Higgins Exhibition

I'm Not a Doctor But I'll Take a Look, Michael Higgins' current exhibition at Cork Film Centre Gallery, Ballincollig, which I curated, has been extended and expanded. It will now run until December 14th and is to be accompanied throughout by Higgins' feature film Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep, playing on loop in Cork Film Centre's cinema space there.

I'm Not a Doctor But I'll Take a Look was created in response to the Ballincollig Gunpowder Mills, the historical site now occupied by Cork Film Centre. Three fragmented split-screen projections of hand-processed 35mm black & white film present glimpses of mysterious characters in the post-industrial remains of the Gunpowder Mills. Their appearance and often strange actions make their era impossible to determine, giving them a ghostly resonance. But the battered, aged appearance of the film itself is as important as the images, linking the now moribund technology of celluloid film to the location's industrial past. This connection is accentuated by the other elements in the show: a selection of rusted metal objects relating to the Gunpowder Mills that Higgins found abandoned in nearby woodlands; jars of chemicals; strips of film; and, not least, an intense sound installation that evokes both industrial-age machinery and its ghosts in terms of noise.

To view the new trailer for it: https://vimeo.com/53262871

Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep (60 mins, 2012) is a hypnotic and oneiric cinematic poem composed from footage Michael Higgins shot on the road in Canada. Using hand-processed film techniques to create an unworldly zone between sleep and wakefulness, it looks at three characters and the things that make them one.

To view the trailer: http://somemustwatch.com/

Work @ Super8 Shots Festival, Galway

One of my videos made using Super8 elements will be screened as part of this year's Super8 Shots Super-8 festival in Galway this coming Saturday (November 17th):

Experimental Filmmakers Invade Cork!

Who are these fellows? Why are their faces so set with grim determination?

It's all part of this ongoing spate of experimental film activity that's nibbling at the edges of our city this week...

Rouzbeh Rashidi (on the picture's left) had his film HE, starring his regular acting collaborator James Devereaux (on the right), screened at The Guesthouse last Sunday.

Then he shot the first scenes for a new experimental horror film called There Is No Escape From Terrors of The Mind in which James and I (second from right) enacted some tantalisingly mysterious scenes. But the nature of the whole film remains locked in Rouzbeh's mind and will only reveal itself as the film is shot in bits and pieces over the next year...

No less busy is Michael Higgins (second from left). Our allies at The Guesthouse also gave him a screening this evening. And passers-by, innocently out walking in the woods near the Ballincollig branch of Cork Film Centre, have been terrorised by the sight of Michael filming a young lady in a gas mask and evening dress with an ancient Russian 35mm movie camera that resembles a robot's head and, due to a broken crank, can only be operated with a hand drill.

The reason and madness behind this will be revealed on Thursday when his exhibition I'm Not a Doctor But I'll Take a Look opens at Cork Film Centre Gallery.

 For more information on that, please visit: 

http://corkfilmcentregallery.com/ 
  

New Work on Vimeo

As part of my project of uploading six of my videos every month, I've decided to include in November's batch a brand new, never before screened piece called Something Else.

It's also now possible to view:

Hereunder (made with Vicky Langan and also posted on her Vimeo page)
Hotel La Mirage
The Everywhere Trilogy
John Puts a Chair Away
Available Light 

Enjoy!