ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
The elements are as much psychological as physical, embodied both in the natural landscapes of the world we inhabit and as substantial forces within image-making. This programme explores elemental embodiment as a set of both extensive and intensive qualities, in image substance itself and landscape as subject. There are abstract expressions, evocations of the elemental transitions of place, transformed landscapes. Images consumed by fire, a woman awaiting her dead husband to return as a seagull, a final questioning of the nature of substantial forms themselves.
This selection of short films by national and international artists is from our open submissions programme.
Sunday 23rd October, 12.15 am, Tower Mill
Running time: 1hr
Tickets: £4
Abstract Visions
Directed by: Tanya Shilina-Conte
Running time: 00:07:50
Year: 2011
Country: United States
Synopsis:
My project 'Abstract Visions' consists of four pieces, namely Untitled, Mosaic of Life's Gravity, Fire and Ice, and 5,778K5,778 K. My goal was to make each abstract piece stand apart in terms of style, color, atmosphere and the emotional response they evoke in the viewer. My videos are non-figural, non-narrative and make an attempt to break established patterns of visual conventions.
Biography:
Tanya Shilina-Conte holds a PhD in English from Saint-Petersburg Herzen State University. She is currently in the process of getting her second PhD in Film and Media Study from the University at Buffalo, where she also teaches film theory and criticism in the departments of Media Study and English. She is the recipient of an award in Culture and Cinematography from the Ministry of Russian Federation. Her interests are video art, experimental media and the theory of the senses in cinema.
Artist's website: http://vimeo.com/user5538119/videos
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Berlin Airlift
Directed by: Wolfgang Lehrner
Running time: 00:02:06
Year: 2011
Country: Austria
Synopsis:
Moving Images
Reality as a movie.
Movie as reality.
Biography:
Please see www.wolfganglehrner.com.
Artist's website: http://www.wolfganglehrner.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Centipede Sun
Directed by: Mihai Grecu
Running time: 00:10:00
Year: 2010
Country: France
Synopsis:
"a mesmerizing video poem on transforming landscapes: series of metaphors on isolation, deconstruction and the limits of the inhabitable territory"
Biography:
Mihai Grecu was born in Romania in 1981. After studying art and design in Romania and France, he has been pursuing his artistic research at the Fresnoy Studio of Contemporary Arts. Recurring topics such as environment, water, city life and war articulate the whole of his exploration of mysterious and subconscious beginnings. These visual and poetic trips, mix several techniques and styles and may be seen as propositions for a new dream oriented technology. His work hes been shown in numerous film festivals (Locarno, Rotterdam, Festival of New Cinema in Montreal, Videoformes) and exhibitions ("Dans la nuit, des images" at the Grand Palais, "Labyrinth of my mind" at Le Cube, "Studio" at "Les Filles du Calvaire" Gallery, etc).
Artist's website: http://www.mihaigrecu.org/
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Drifting
Directed by: Lin Li
Running time: 00:03:57
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Using simple transformation of the visual image, and a sound track composed and sung by the artist, this film is a meditative video poem which explores the mesmerizing quality of gently moving water.
Biography:
Lin Li's work reflects an enduring interest in music and the interactive effect of sound and visual images. The subject matter is also influenced by her cross-cultural experience and concern with the ephemeral elements of nature and the transience of human experiences.
Coming from an academic and employment background in Social Sciences and disability service, she gradually shifted vocation to Fine Art over the past ten years. Video is a medium which she has recently begun to explore. Recent exhibitions include Bath Fringe Arts Festival in 2010 and at St Andrews in the Square, Glasgow in 2011.
Artist's website: http://www.linli-art.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Finitude
Directed by: Anne Patsch
Running time: 00:02:20
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
In 'Finitude' a blank sheet of paper reveals an image of a suburban landscape just before being engulfed by flames. Moments later the blaze dies down, leaving only a calm, subtle shadow of the sheet and its image. In this work fire serves as an archetype of human innovation, illustrating both its necessity and its inherently perilous nature.
Biography:
Born in 1984, Anne Patsch is an American artist who lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland. She completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the Glasgow School of Art in 2011. Her work is interdisciplinary, continuously varying the materials and combinations of media employed. The concepts of perception, time, creation and destruction are a repeated focal point in her practice.
Artist's website: http://www.annepatsch.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Forms Are Not Self-Subsistent Substances
Directed by: Samantha Rebello
Running time: 00:22:30
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
'And indeed the question which was raised of old and is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. what being is, is just the question, what is substance?' - Aristotle, Metaphysics, VII-I. Flesh, milk and meat are the subjects of an attempt to understand 'substance' with medieval imagery. Bestiary illuminations, Romanesque carvings, medieval bells and living things reveal the strangeness and violence of being.
Biography:
Samantha Rebello has been working in film and sound since 2004. Her work has been screened at festivals and venues including IFF Rotterdam, London Film Festival, Images Festival Toronto and at the Serpentine and Whitechapel Galleries in London. Her films have won awards at Media City Festival (Windsor, Ontario) 2011 and at the Aurora Festival (Norwich) in 2008.
Filmography
2010
Forms Are Not Self-Subsistent Substances- 22 mins (Grand Prize, Media City Festival)
2009
Two Studies: Beasts I & Beasts 2- 8mins
2008
In Suspension- 12 mins
2007
Properties of Fluids - 10mins (2 screen performance)
The Object Which Thinks Us: OBJECT 1 - 7mins (Award for Best Film, Aurora Festival)
2006
Division of the Tissues - 5mins
The Surface of Residual Matter - 13mins
2005
Continuum- 15mins (3 screen performance)
2004
Outer Casings of a Few Small Creatures - 1min
Artist's website: http://www.objectwhichthinksus.blogspot.com
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Metamorphosis
Directed by: Pat Law
Running time: 00:03:27
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
A response to the short George Mackay Brown story 'The Shell Story' highlighting the emotional trials of women who lost their fishermen husbands at sea and the surreal daily behaviour adopted to get them through their daily lives.
Biography:
Pat Law is a visual artist working mainly in paint and lens based image. Her work is prompted by observation of the landscape encountered through voyages or travel, often collaborating with artists of different disciplines. She lives and works in the Scottish Borders when not afloat on her Loch Fyne Skiff Kirsty.
Artist's website: http://studiolog.heriot-toun.co.uk
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
Study: l'image-temps and l'image-mouvement
Directed by: Debra Fear
Running time: 00:01:46
Year: 2010
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Spasms of visual editing resonate aurally and pass through different planes vibrating at the threshold of the cinematic form. The layered landscape becomes transformed into the crystalline matrix within Gilles Deleuze's philosophic theories.
Biography:
I graduated in 2010 with a BA (Hons) Fine Art in Time-based Media at University of the Arts London (UAL)
You can see showreels of my filmography on my website: www.debrafear.co.uk
Artist's website: http://www.debrafear.co.uk
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
The Changes that go Unnoticed
Directed by: Robyn Hall
Running time: 00:02:20
Year: 2011
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
Part one of a suite of three films. The concept behind these films was to portray the changes that have taken place but have gone unnoticed over time, in a place that is close to my heart. The films are of places I have been to frequently since i was a child.
Biography:
This is my first venture into Video Art. Over the past two years I've been studying BTEC art and design, and at the end of our second year we are given the chance to create and carry out our own project, because we hadn't covered film I thought that i would give it a shot. I had to learn how to edit both film and sound. The films is mainly made up of still photographs taken by myself.
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
The Quick and the Dead
Directed by: Patricia Townsend
Running time: 00:02:47
Year: 2008
Country: United Kingdom
Synopsis:
The Quick and the Dead is one of a series of video and installation works, inspired by Morecambe Bay, that explore the shifting relationship between land and water, above and below. The Bay has been described as a “wet desert” and is a treacherous area of quicksands and rapid tidal flow. This piece is based on an unusual but natural phenomenon in which water springs from beneath the sands. The work plays with the fluidity of time, its soundtrack accentuating the viewer’s sense of instability and imminent danger.
Biography:
Patricia Townsend works with video and installation to explore our emotional relationship with landscape. Her work has been shown internationally in gallery exhibitions and film and video screenings. Recent exhibitions and screenings include Fotofest, Houston, Texas; Leeds International Film Festival; BBC Big Screen, Manchester; Pocket Film Festival, Paris; The Dock Museum, Barrow-in-Furness; Strang Print Room, University College, London; Tullie House, Carlisle.
Patricia gained an MA Photography at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, in 2003. She is currently a PhD student at the Slade School of Fine Art.
Artist's website: http://www.patriciatownsend.co.uk
Venue: Tower Mill
Screening date: October 23, 2011
Screening time: 12:15
Programme: ELEMENTALS: LANDSCAPE OF FORMS
