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Film and Installation
Collection of film and installation projects
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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
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
"Changing Shore" Wollongong Nocturnal Arts Festival
2012 "Protecting Our Land and Water from Coal Seam Gas Mining" web documentary
music video "Our Land, Our Water, Our Future"
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
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.
