Microcinema DVDs

Catalog Number: MC-182	Type: Shorts Compilation	Genre: Experimental
Copyright: 2003	Length: 65 minutes	Format: DVD Region: 0 (All)
TV System: PAL	ISBN:	UPC:
Label:

This title is available in Europe for Wholesale - List Prices: £14.99 / 22.00€

Wholesale Purchasing: Program MC-182 is available for wholesale from Microcinema DVD. Contact info[at]microcinema.com or call at +1-415-447-9750

Exhibition: Microcinema is not authorized to represent this title for exhibition. Write us for this contact information.

Films In Compilation

Heatwork for Sparklers and Spycams directed by Lee Patterson United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:04:50 Heatwork centres on discovery of sound in objects, structures and spaces, where it's presence is an invitation to engage with the source. In this collaboration both sources and sounds are raw materials in a process of sonic and optical inscription that utilises basic recording technology and a performative working process. The spectacle is a celebration of the material properties of source matter and original event.
Ugly Little Ornaments directed by Paul Cordwell United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:01:10 DVD is a giddy parade of sensation with the illusion of viewer control, where the order of images is secondary to their meaningless digestion. This restless smorgasbord pollutes and supersedes the surrounding home - which necessarily banishes tasteless kitsch (so as not to compete visually or conceptually with the life-affirming medium). In these pieces, the frames become storage units for the inert kitsch of ornamental forerunners to DVD's inchoate hyperactivity. Baroque music draws non-viewers' attention to static ornaments looking back, and transposes expected optical activity into sound. These 'potters wheels' paradoxically critique the ubiquitous, active screens of techno-innovation.
Shadow Songs directed by Suki Chan United Kingdom, Experimental, 2002, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:05:00 This animation interprets Pliny's myth of the origin of drawing, where a young girl traces her lover's shadow to capture his presence - he later disappears and is never seen again. The sound is a modern account of a traditional folk song from remote southern China, whose original words have been forgotten in time. Made in collaboration with Dinu Li and Andy Hunwick.
Heap, The directed by The Cartwright Brothers United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:02:00 The work is a digital fantasy: pixel creatures wander the forest and gravitate inexorably towards the rhythmic splendour that is the heap of primal matter. The creatures are drawn to and transfixed by this elemental fountain. The pixel bestiary commences an instinctive dance to the throb and pulse of the quivering heap as a state of wild transfiguration is achieved. A wonder of fecundity, a myth: the spitting geyser taps deep into its mucilaginous reservoir. Its ceaseless convulsions describe a natural cycle of life, death and compostation. The Cartwright Brothers use software and the machine to chisel their creatures in a work that moves them from synthetic vagrancy to God's ineffable animal pyramid.
Crossroads directed by Scott Byrne United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:07:30 Crossroads are sites of impromptu magical performance - secret spaces where indescribable events and changes occur. Here it was possible to sell your soul to the devil in return for mastery of a skill. This outside place is now duplicated millions of times in every town and city, potentially reducing the substance of sacred and feared spaces through familiarity. Now artworks, once considered sacred and singular, are digitised for infinite, perfect duplicates. Does this mass compression and proliferation, the conversion of emotive images and sounds, make the work any less powerful? Are we selling our souls at the digital crossroads?
Road Movie, A directed by Nick Jordan United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:03:00 A filmic construct mirroring the outcome of hand-cranked projection and the flicker of celluloid as it interleaves through the gate. A real-time loop built with the aid of bicycle, DV camera, and two identified points with which to begin and end.
Dictaphone directed by Joe Devlin United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:02:00 Found dictaphone tape on street corner subject to removal of speech, highlights the materials used to make recording.
Another Road Movie directed by Nick Jordan United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:01:10 Intersection of French landscape as seen from a speeding car at noon with digital arabesques generated by tape replay pressed on fast forward.
X-Time directed by Kristin Scheving United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:04:25 Images and sound recorded in Reykjavik 10 minutes before and after New Years Eve, overlayed with audio captured from internet pornography. A narrative of expectation, sexual energy and celebration is wryly evoked through the combination of audio sampling and a climactic firework display.
Symbolic Exchange & Death directed by Blake Quentin United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:01:20 Insect eyes and menu-icons, in mutual regard, form a multi-layered system. The film interprets the restless repetition and redundancy of menu and insect behaviour as typical of absurd technological society. The visual and sonic play alludes to our hyped digital utopia - the tension between an unbridled material and its standardization into discrete binary units.
Object/Sound/Movement directed by Carl Turton United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:02:20 These three excerpts are from a collection of eight formal observations of objects. Choice of object arises from experimentation with potential sounds that can be created through physical interaction with each item. Sound is approached as a painterly consideration of line, tone and colour. These repetitive, looped compositions playfully structure sound into percussion, and movement into dance - creating audio and visual experiences that work as rhythmic wholes.
Flying From the Ground directed by Jenna Collins United Kingdom, Experimental, 2002, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:04:30 The aeroplane, once-potent symbol of progressive modernity, has become a problematic and contradictory motif. Concorde crashed. Warplanes are flown virtually. Return to Malaga, £35. On 9/11 planes took lead roles in a video loop where real life trumped fiction over and over again. Flight paths redraw world maps and suggest escape and routine. The plane viewed from the ground can be a wistful, graceful thing too. These pieces allow symbolic, narrative or political aspects of the plane to play out ambiguously, whilst the artists occupy themselves with more formal concerns: the difference between looking, hearing and being.
Fait Accompli directed by Ben Schmark United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:04:00 An investigative journey through the pipes of a failed, automated drug manufacture process. The endoscope records vapours, contours, embolisms, and various liquids or foreign matter resulting from cross-contamination. The interplay of light and an organic, respiratory soundtrack evoke a feeling of claustrophobia, compression and discovery. The found-footage has been captured through a looped video signal, generating unpredictable image feedback.
Rogue State directed by Dave Griffiths United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:02:20 A set of vetoed resolutions was inscribed onto tape using a magnetic quill. In the digital apparatus, these fragile, analogue impulses produce lawless sonic and visual explosions - making a fluid spectacle of synthetic apocalypse. The action occupies and confuses the space between labour and immediacy in old and new media, and alludes to links between entertainment and military technology. As compressed light and sound are unleashed in illusive, volatile single-frame bursts, the notion of digital perfection is tested.
Piano: A Sound Object directed by Mark Pilkington United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:04:40 12,000 pieces of wood, steel and felt - seemingly unsympathetic materials for a piano. The piece explores its construction and deconstruction by assembling recorded sounds taken from these components. These were arranged in an abstract structure of sound objects and juxtaposed against familiar pitched tones performed on a live acoustic piano. The time-lapsed visuals depict an image of a toy piano encased in a melting ice cube.
Girlz, The directed by Jenny Hallstrom United Kingdom, Experimental, 2003, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:02:55 The sound is of two women who passed the artist in the street every weekday at approximately the same time for more than a month The artist and a friend, Nikki Cooper, quietly construct intriguing stories about the two women. The visuals are stills of transcripts of these recordings. The film documents a period of time, through repetition and the compression of narrative.
Print Machine, The directed by Tamzin Forster United Kingdom, Experimental, 2002, DV, Color, Magnetic Stereo, 00:03:40 A slow pan and zoom around the mechanics of a printing press. Highlighting the duplication and ryhthmic procedures in the construction of text, the piece subtly illuminates ambiguity in language through it's fabrication and distribution. The reiteration of the printed word acquires aesthetic strangeness, where meaning may lose or gain significance