Crystal Gaze


Digitised copy of a 1989 experimental 16mm movie film. These experiments in night light were inspired by a Native American creation story using a kind of magical realism. Written excerpts from an ancient Mayan text have been juxtaposed with the spoken reminiscences of an old man's life and death encounter in the the wilds of America. In a strange twist of mise-en-scene the camera assistant appears between choreographed takes whilst "bathing the eye with light to create stronger dreams". 3rd Week of Experimental Cinema, ARCO, Madrid official selection.
Flute player and camera assistant: Pete Teller. Storyteller: Johnny "the Castillean".

On Schizoid Farm

An experimental 16mm film made in 1987 and recently digitised. It follows a homeless schizophrenic in the streets of San Francisco. The word salad spoken monologue and real time photo animation are comprised of cut-ups of junk mail and magazines found on the street. The film explores the experience of social alienation and urban dislocation among the mentally ill. Rather than documentary techniques it uses magical realism to interpret reality.

With thanks to Robert Fox and Jerome Carolfi

YOU!

This is an experimental 16mm hand-coloured, scratched and collaged film that uses snippets of sixties corporate training films and cartoons that have been altered and reconstructed. It spoofs social conditioning in the workforce and deconstructs underlying power relationships. Techniques have been borrowed from the sixties California avant-gards film movement and French inspired Situationist detournement.

Newcastle Cold War secret


A true story of growing up in an anti-Communist family during the Cold War in Newcastle, Australia. In the 90th anniversary year of the founding of the Communist Party of Australia, two 50 year old women brought up on opposite sides of the the Cold War discover a sense of shared humanity during the 2010 Australian Federal election. The narrator's childhood reminiscence recalled against the backdrop of Bob Santamaria's shadowy Industrial Groups with its airbrushed human toll are finally brought to light in an act of empathy and self realisation. As an echo of the ambiguous nature of history, the election ends with a hung parliament leading to a minority government formed across the political spectrum for the first time in Australia in more than 70 years. A cathartic ending or a new beginning? Music from "Thinking of You" by Kevin MacLeod is Licensed under CC and is royalty free

Work Makes You Free

Under sunny, blue skies and the all-controlling gaze of the state you soon learn that if you don't laugh you'll only cry...

more at http://workmakesyoufree.blogspot.com.au/

Work Makes You Free This edgy black satire, imbued with the zeitgeist of the impending Occupy mass protest movement, follows the travails of Connie a disabled welfare recipient struggling for the right to exist while navigating Australia's misanthropic welfare system. Using stand-up comedy as a weapon for the oft-silenced voice of the other, Connie tells a story of underclass survival. Using the visual language of aesthetic formalism to radically interrogate the status quo, this film exposes the dehumanising regime that is Australia’s dark underside. Work Makes You Free completed in 2012 is an 8 minute 58 second HD digital personal film.

Chance Encounters

This is from a one hour collaborative performance by Crossover Artists group featuring artists from different cultural backgrounds coming together to perform one balmy night in 1998 at Marjorie Chu's Art Forum Gallery, Singapore. "It ... had the quality of a side-show alley, raucous and filled with the gamin quality of life where coincidence plays a greater part than we might suspect or want to know." wrote Mark Elliot-Ranken. Singapore based artists Sepi Valeriu, Chiang Jing Ying, Sunny Tan, Y.Y.Seck, Bernadette Smith and Mark Elliot-Ranken come from Romania, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia. After travelling together on an artist camp to Kakadu, on their return created this unique performance which became a seminal Singapore art event. Using slide projections on translucent sheets they have manipulated photographic imagery by hand and sampled sound-making genres to explore notions of identity, otherness, exotica and difference. Video production by Bernadette Smith.

Big Sky Horizon


In 1998 twenty Singapore-based artists carry out ground breaking visual research for their art practice while camped in Kakadu, northern Australia. This field trip included eminent Singapore artists such as Chua Ek Kay and Dr Earl Lu along with others from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds who came together in Kakadu national park to see indigenous landscapes and expand their art horizons. On their return to Singapore they created a series of paradigm-shifting exhibitions. The trip was organised by Marjorie Chu of Art Forum gallery assisted by Mark Elliot-Ranken and documented by Bernadette Smith. This documentary goes behind the scenes to uncover the art process from perception to execution and reveals multi-nodal shifts of meaning across cultures. It is a transformative experience for both viewer and artist.

Film bio

FILMOGRAPHY

2016 "Waterline" 4 min HD video silent

https://vimeo.com/210542207

"Changing Shore" Wollongong Nocturnal Arts Festival

https://youtu.be/YzhGb4hfzpo

2012 "Protecting Our Land and Water from Coal Seam Gas Mining" web documentary

http://youtu.be/X8NFiv1pkLE

music video "Our Land, Our Water, Our Future"

http://youtu.be/BPVLJowmRDM

experimental social satire "Work Makes You Free" http://vimeo.com/45623709

2010 “Newcastle’s Cold War Secret” personal film documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dctr7fIsoTo

Cameraperson for Octapod media team’s This Is Not Art Festival digistory http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjwdcn_WiLg

“Looking Back at Stockton Bight” video short documentary http://youtu.be/WxaOR5pVprA

“Something in the Air” music video http://youtu.be/p7wuvjel4mw

2007 “Ostalgie” flash animation http://youtu.be/wuRh0yiRaPQ

1998 “Chance Encounter” camera and editing for Crossover collaboration performance video and installation at Art Forum Gallery, Singapore. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhRadEZQ8xA

video installation for Progeny dance performance September Art Festival, at the Substation, Singapore.

1997 “Big Sky Horizon - Singapore Artist Camp South of Darwin

Australia” 31 minute SVHS video documentary. http://vimeo.com/11701383

1996 “San Francisco Trip”, 10 min. 16mm film and live performance.

“Images of Identity”, 20 min. Wollotuka Centre video compilation.

1995 “Maiangal Dreaming” SVHS video documentary, 17 min., produced

for the Community Channel, Sydney. See also http://vimeo.com/11105640

1993 “Olympic Hopefuls?” youth video workshop, Sutherland YAS.

“Had a Dad” youth rock video, Sutherland YAS.

1992 “Shifting Sands”, 12min.,experimental 16mm silent film.

1990 “YOU!”, 8 min. 16mm experimental film. http://vimeo.com/12419976

1988 “Crystal Gaze”, 10 min. 16mm experimental film. http://vimeo.com/12607096

1987 “On Schizoid Farm”, 14 min. 16mm experimental film. http://vimeo.com/13320560

1985-86 Researched and wrote shooting script for “Dinetah - A Portrait of

the Navajo People” proposed 50 minute documentary video.

1985 “First Works” Umatic video art compilation, 20min.

“Searching For The Spare Rib”, Super 8 experimental film, 25min.

1984 “Broken English”, 20 min.16mm drama, Australia.

1983 “Is There Anything You Must Tell Us?” 20 min. Super 8 docudrama.

1982 “Tunnel Vision”, 15min. Super 8 experimental film.

FILM & VIDEO SCREENINGS

2017 Sydney Underground Film Festival Secret Cinema 16 mm extravaganza

2016 Beams Festival

2013 finalist Footprints Eco Film Festival Leichardt Council

2012 finalist Novembrism 2012 – Sydney’s underground music video festival

2011 official selection Festival Internacional de Cinepobre 2011 film festival

2010 Newcastle’s Cold War Secret screened at the Mori Gallery, Sydney.

2007 screening Stockton Bight – A Retrospective Screen & Media Expo,

Media Centre, Hunter St TAFE, Newcastle.

1998 video installation for Progeny dance performance, Substation

September Art Festival, Singapore.

1996 The Dispensary Cafe Theatre, Enmore, Sydney..

1994 Television Broadcast on the Community Channel, Sydney.

1993 3rd Week of Experimental Cinema, ARCO, Madrid.

1992 “Storytelling Revisited” San Francisco Cinematheque, USA.

1991 Fringe Festival at the Lounge, Melbourne.

1990 Matinaze Film &Video Survey, Domain Theatre, AGNSW. Sydney.

Australian Film and Video at the Millenium, New York, USA.

1988 “Other Cinema” Series, Artists Television Access, San Francisco.

1986 “The 94110 Show” video showcase at the Eye Gallery, USA.

INSTALLATIONS

Vanishing Shore at Crown Street Mall Wollongong part of Nocturnal Arts 2016


Bernadette Smith and Mark Elliot-Ranken transform the exterior of a Wesley sandstone church into 'Vanishing Shore' a Climate Change performance/installation at Wollongong's Nocturnal Arts Festival when the sun goes down on the 25th, 26th and 27th February and the 3rd, 4th and 5th March 2016.


It was created for Wollongong Council's 2016 Nocturnal Arts Festival outside Wesley Church in Crown Street Mall and brings together scientific, political and religious thoughts about climate change and water security. 


Passersby were given an apocalyptic vision of a precarious world with unsafe drinking water, compromised food supply and ocean inundation based on actual data modelling. Performed by Bernadette Smith and Mark Elliot-Ranken. Created by artist Bernadette Smith. 'Vanishing Shore' at Nocturnal Arts Festival trailer link here.

 detail from "Vanishing Shore' installation at Wollongong's 2016 Nocturnal Arts Festival