Lightness New Film Project

Lightness is a new moving image project, shot at the end of summer 2014 in Greenwich, London & Glenelg, Scotland. I am going into the wilderness in search of the stars - the celestial kind. Lightness will be my first solo 16mm film project shot mostly at night with some digital intervention, an attempt to restore in the viewer some of the lost wonder & humbleness felt when stargazing.

Some of my most profound moments have been whilst viewing the stars in remote areas of the world. Due to burgeoning light pollution, magnificent celestial displays are sadly not something many urban dwellers experience. A little piece of magic disappears from our grey world.

I am embarking on an expedition to the remote village of Glenelg, in the Scottish Highlands, to

film on my 1960s Bolex camera (gifted to mer by Terence Preston, the microbiologist star of Small Wonders). Glenelg boasts some of the most unspoilt night's skies in the UK, which alongside filming, I plan to capture the seasonal tourist Glenchurlish ferry between Glenelg & Skye & meet the crew. I am interested in finding out about their lives & philosophies.

In London I will meet & record conversations with urban astronomers & enthusiasts, perhaps

anecdotes of their first cosmic experiences & how best to see the stars in populated areas. These recordings may be used for the soundtrack of the film.

As part of the Lightness project there will be an online research blog which will be contributed to by artists & writers. Lightness will be screened at my solo show at The Bohunk Institute, Nottingham in November 2014 and further venues, to be announced. Lightness will prelude a sister film project called Darkness made on an Australian Arts Council residency in Finland over the winter of 2014-15.

This project is being made with the aid of an Arts Council grant.

Project Blog

New work premiering at Aldeburgh

My new animation Passing By of the, once ubiquitous now extinct, North American Passenger Pigeon is going to be projected on the South Beach Lookout tower in Aldeburgh, Suffolk as part of the show Ghosts of Gone Birds curated by Chris Aldous next week. 

More info. 28th July to 10th August 2014. From dusk every evening. Exhibition inside gallery during day.

Small Wonders spreads like the plague....

Thanks to the Wellcome Trust's generous funding and the film's popularity it is to be shown at the Cardiff Science festival (Sunday 20th July), as part of Forest Hill London's artist moving image festival SE23mov (Saturday 2nd August 7pm at Montage gallery), screening in Edinburgh as part of the free Fringe film festival 9am-10pm daily for whole of August and SW will be off to International Nature Film Festival in Vaasa, Finland in 1st-5th October. More screenings to come....

 

Spike Island, Bristol screening 20th May 6pm

A second chance to the see Dawn of the Rainbow in the Ed Adams curated screening: Adventures in the Other Screen Trade at Spike Island.

Outcasting has been looking for artists whose work inhabits a different yet parallel world to the one described by William Goldman in his book ‘Adventures in the Screen Trade’. These artists manipulate the production values, techniques, content, sounds, cast-offs and memories of the film and television canon to make films that are rooted in the accepted language of mainstream film-making but are anything but mainstream.

This programme will include the work of Bobby Abate, Darren Banks, Tessa Garland, Katie Goodwin, Kika Nicolela, John Rowley & Ruaidhri Ryan.

My first Bolex film

Terence Preston, the microbiologist, who's voice and 1972 microscopic footage bought alive amoebae in the Small Wonders film, kindly gave me a beautiful Bolex 16mm camera that started the whole conversation. So rather than it sit on the shelf gathering dust, I decided to learn how to use this camera and start to incorporate the footage into my practice. I intend to take it to Finland as older mechanics work better in colder climes than digital battery powered cameras.

This short film is a result of a collaboration with animator Susan Young whilst on a Bolex course with  filmmaking co-op no.w.here. It was shot on location in Deptford and Greenwich whilst witnessing the May Day Jack-In-The-Green tradition.  So much fun.