Kari descriptor thing

WORK 1

‘Silent Film’ is an unconverted 16mm looped film, which depicts bootlegged shots of MTV music videos without sound. Each loop lasts 3.30 minutes. It is projected onto a single suspended sheet of grey felt which hangs heavily from the ceiling.

‘Silent film’ was shot in 16mm, it captures footage from a digital high definition screen depicting the MTV channel. A lot of editing was done in-camera. I chose fragments of music videos I thought were interesting. Lengths of shot were dictated by the number of frames allowed by one wind of the 16mm camera.

I was interested in exploring and playing with the idea of optical sound. The speed of edit on MTV is largely dictated by sonic rhythm. The work investigates the idea of receiving images through audio but removes this mediation, so what is left is a visual portrait of the speed of sound.

This is the final edit of this iteration of the piece. Working with 16mm film has taught me a lot about the materiality of digital articulation. I would like to use analogue film in future and to drive forward the ideas within this work.

WORK 2

‘Umemaro 3D Takeout Pizza Obscenity in the Key of Freddy Buache’ is an HD digital film, which lasts for 11 minutes. It features one single shot, held for the entire length of the film. This image is a frame cut within the frame. A French computer voice reads a text in English. Within the larger frame and below the image are subtitles which correspond to what the narrator is saying. Gradually through the film ‘Bolero’ by Ravel becomes audible and gradually gets louder until it competes with the narrator.

The film was made with an HD digital camera on a tripod capturing one single shot of a hand holding an iphone within a busy shopping street in Rotterdam. The text being narrated is spoken from an ambiguous position of a computerised, bodiless body referring to the 'I' of someone else. The text is written from the perspective of a female character within a 'Hentai' (animated 3D porn) film and refers to an interaction between two people (a man and woman) who play out their relation within the context of advanced/semio-capital.

The film is a combination of appropriated and translated source materials. These range from 3D animated ‘Hentai’ porn to structuralist filmmaking to the rambling, essayistic, cinematic, self-indulgences of Jean Luc Godard.

I am unsure where to go with this work. Making the film gave me more confidence in my writing ability. I would like to try to do other things with text in future, perhaps in different mediums, which build on from this work.

WORK 3

‘smooth talker/striated silence’ is a digital HD video work. It is shown on a flat screen monitor tilted on its back and propped between the floor and a corner wall so the viewer stands over the work. The sound for the film is on wireless headphones. On the screen is a collage of different video fragments with a narrated text split into three parts read by a female Welsh accented voice.

The film is made using a range of media. There are sections of green screen footage overlayed with found extracts ‘ripped’ from youtube as well as animated 3d Polygons, which exist only in digital space.

The thing that connects the, at times seemingly disparate, footage in this work is an attempt to articulate Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of ‘smooth space’. This they see as oppositional to the ‘striated space’ of society/language. The text also is a poetic meditation on smooth space and how we might exist within it.

I think this work is fertile ground for moving forward with. I would like to work more with the images I was using in the film, particularly the 3D animation. Installing this work made me think about the sculptural and physical elements of showing video. The film was presented in way that was deliberately non-immersive and so that you looked down on it, rather than vertical and upright. It made me question sculptural elements of viewing video, such as how proximity and position of body to works and how this affects readings.