Vanitas revisited

In an interesting turn of events since beginning work on my video archive I was contacted in February by Berlin-based Dane, Jens Christian Madsen about using an older work of mine, Vanitas 100 (from 13 years ago!!! Is that possible!?!), in a clip for his band/project Tjaere+Fjer‘s song Faking It All.

As a video within a video it will appear without Jamie Kiffiak’s deliciously soporific voiceover, but it’s quite exciting to think something from so long ago has some life. I was intruiged by the directors synopsis and am really looking forward to seeing the finished piece which must be in production AS I TYPE!

I made it while living in Vancouver, Canada in 2000 and there are a lot of things I would do differently now, but I still like the 100 freakishly differing self-portraits taken with a Nintendo Gameboy camera and anyone who’s really UP with everything I do will recognise Jamies script as having been re-used for 2011′s A Pack of Lies and indeed was the concept model for ALL the scripts from that work.

You can hear Tjaere+Fjer’s latest release II including Faking It All here.

This is a video for an earlier track Away which I quite dig too. Retro sounding electronica with 80′s mumbles.

A postcard from Ballarat

Here is some documentation of Ectoplasmic insitu in Ballarat. It’s so nice when pictures come back of the thing you sent out into the world.

All images courtesy of Ben Cox, Ballarat Art Gallery. Thank you Ballarat Art Gallery.

Activity

I just wanted to post a record that indicates things are still happening. The PhD research is a project about lived time. It takes time.

Ballarat – where it’s at.

Another happy outcome of the Bett Gallery exhibition is an ongoing screening of Ectoplasmic in Ballarat Art Gallery‘s projection window. It’s running from 8pm to 7am until Feb 1 so if you have call or cause to be in Ballarat in the evenings in the next couple of weeks – do check it out.  And take a photo for me would ya?

The Medium wrap-up

Hi, Happy New Year. I’m back to business…

The Medium closed at the beginning of December and along with being more successful commercially than I could have expected, was a totally positive experience. I received such warm, supportive feedback and such warm support from Bett Gallery itself, I really can’t imagine now what it was about a commercial gallery/artist relationship that put me off for so long.

Here follows some installation shots, bit daggy but proof that it ever happened and a good record of the hang.

Thank you to all who got there to check it out, your comments passed back to me via gallery staff have really left me buoyed to keep moving forward with this PhD thingo.

EDIT: BTW If you didn’t get to the show and want to see the video, a poorly compressed (sorry – it’s all that ‘fizzing’ – compression says ‘no’.) upload of the video can be seen here .

‘The Medium’ opening Nov 9 @ Bett Gallery, Hobart

Opening 6pm on Friday, November 9 in the rear space at Bett Gallery and continuing until December 1,
The Medium will be my first ever commercial show and I’m very excited.

Consisting of 2 animations and a some choice frames from the most recent, it’s been keeping me busier than just about anything I’ve ever done, but it’s ready now.

Come on over.

testing, always testing…

The vital noodle

…in that this piece, Ectoplasmic, was what I was noodling away at earlier this year when I thought I might just have a project for further postgrad study and decided to apply for the PhD program. In it’s first stages at any rate, my research is about non-linear time. I love me some loops, which is how I (very slowly) came back to gifs. I used to make them for my first websites in the 90′s. Crazy days.

The frames here are watercolour and coffee over inkjet and while initially it was poverty that led me to include the frames where my printer’s ink supply gave out on me, I like the added texture – like old-fashioned broadcast telelvision signal interferance – something we’ll never see again I guess.

I’ll be having my first commercial exhibition at Bett Gallery in their rear/trial space near the end of the year and I think this will be the direction I head for that as well. Brief animated video loops and the painted frames that make them up.  I think.

Just quietly, I can’t tell you what a hoot it is to suddenly be a watercolourist.

Needs a sawing accordian soundtrack…

An early simple one, but I like it’s structure.

EDIT: NOW WITH SAWING ACCORDIAN SOUNDTRACK THANKS TO MAT WARD. THANK YOU MAT WARD!

 

Studio tests

This is an animated gif test of some studio play with salt crusted photographs. I think I’ve decided that I do want this work to end up as a short animated loop but this one has just been the ‘sampler’ to work out the process and best method for this particular work, which is currently untitled.

I started a tumblr to hold my gif experiments but it actually doesn’t work as well with larger gifs as WordPress so I’m about to do some retrospective posting to bring stuff back here.

I’m really keen to pursue the gif as the starting form for new video and as a form in itself. So. PhD… awayyyyyyy we go.