0426 relevator

0426 relevator

saw a great short experimental film last night called Roulement, Rouerie, Aubage (1978, Rose Lowder) which examines light modulated through a waterwheel on a river in France. I love films like this and was held enrapt for the 15 minute duration, which felt like 4 minutes.

I shot this on my way up to the screening just before seeing that film. So many interesting coincidences between what I make and subsequently see at the festival. I feel that the festival is trying to communicate things to me. I don't buy into fate, destiny, or all that mystic crap.. I know that I'm simply very aware of my current work and am quick to connect it with what I see at the festival and I apply relevance as it suits my life right now. I composited the 8 second footage with repetitions and a little bit of time dilation.. you know my regular digital compositing things.. and combined it with audio that I'd captured with the Tascam field recorder earlier in the day. The workers were noisily disassembling an event in the big space outside under the beautiful cantilever roof, partly seen at night in this video.

I'm over the negative self-image stuff from yesterday and thinking a lot about how every maker of things has a different approach to, well, everything and as Pip Chodorov stated last night at the screening, they are all valuable.

Before that, I kept thinking, oh man, if he sees my stuff, he must hate it bc it's not 8mm or 16mm film and not hand edited with a cutter and tape (or however the process has been for 100 years). I work in digital formats and I carry a little shame in that. But I don't think I should. justification incoming: All of the experimental filmmakers that I'm watching at the festival were using techniques that were made possible by new/old modifications to film cameras and editing equipment. These were once new, such as the ability to select and view the frame number and rewind the film to make multiple exposures, etc. What I'm doing is essentially the same thing, only the digital tech that I'm taking advantage of is relatively new and (as far as I know) not often done in the ways I'm doing it. (if they are, it's new to me) So that must have some value.

I understand that digital compositing can be seen as cheating, but I see it as simply exploring the uses of existing technology that is available to me and my budget. I like that a lot of wacky shit can be done using open-source software. I enjoy it, so I'm silencing that voice in my head and people can (and should) think whatever they want about what is made. I'm just doing stuff.

I'm only saying this to keep myself from giving up.