Day Four: Sunday 10 November
TV Studio, Stockwell Street Academic Building
12-12.30pm: Screening 2 – 16mm film
David Leister – Blinder
16mm B & W, 7’ 39”, optical sound
Blinder is one of a continuing series of David Leister’s 16mm films and experimental sonic works in which the image is also the source for the optical soundtrack of the film. As well as making playful reference to such films as Lis Rhodes Light Music, it uses a window of opportunity in the domestic environment of a one bedroom flat to produce this experimental work.
David Leister is an established filmmaker who has been an active member of the film community in London since 1983, and he regularly assists other artists with the presentation of their film work with his celebrated 16mm looping system. He has over a dozen films in distribution with LUX that are regularly included in experimental film programmes and festivals both in the UK and in Europe. He has an extensive 16mm archive of discarded educational and information films from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, which formed the basis for The Kino Club, his platform for combining improvised film and music in an informal cabaret-club setting, with David Leister as host and projectionist.
Matt Feldman – A Message from Humboldt
16mm B & W, 7’ 00”, digital sound
Glances at an emptied apartment in Milwaukee drift into a psychodrama confronting fears of death and loneliness. Through the use of in-camera experiments, fractured imagery inquires into the hauntings and mysteries of the everyday.
Matt Feldman (b.1996) is an artistk, filmmaker, and educator based between London, UK and Milwaukee, WI. His works examine place through haptic strategies making use of 16mm and tactile experimentation with the medium. His works have been shown at various galleries and festivals including Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, the San Mei Gallery, and the ICA London
Jim Hobbs – H(xy)/V(z)=Ø
(with additional audio by Jono Crabbe), 16mm B & W + Digital Video, 7’ 31”, digital and live sound
The recollected experience of being blinded by lights while driving at night is the catalyst for a series of loosely linked moving images and graphics which in turn create a type of hallucinatory experience. The original film was projected onto a monumental blackboard surface which was enhanced with a hand-drawn grid made with engineers’ chalk. The structure/screen relates to Hobbs’ father’s work at General Electric, where automotive lighting was tested out by projecting street scenes onto a gridded wall and then shining automotive head lamps onto it – measuring the technical/numerical/visual range of the light while also destroying the superficially projected image. With H(xy)/V(z)=Ø, this destruction/dismantling of image through projection onto a marked grid creates a physically disorientating phenomena. The audio for the work was composed of collected sounds using an electromagnetic microphone to pick up invisible sonic currents from light sources including automotive lamps and handheld torches which were then run through a variety of analogue effects pedals and digital filters. These audio files were then mixed by Jono Crabbe into the final sound work.
Jim Hobbs‘ work utilizes a variety of media including 16mm film, video, installation, site-specific work, drawing, sculpture, sound and photography. His work and research investigate the personal and social implications of loss, oblivion, history, place, memory and the subsequent acts of remembrance/memorialisation. The work bears particular focus on how the use of architecture (space/place) and monuments (objects) become a type of physical manifestation of that which is absent, and how these “stand-ins” can be used, manipulated, and reformed. More recently, his work has moved into the realm of filmic installations and performances, utilizing film as a time based material and medium to investigate these concerns. He often collaborates with other artists/musicians to expand the work across disciplines and find new relationships between sound and image. Intrinsically interlinked with this is a constant questioning of the role of the analogue within the digital age – how it functions, if it can override associations with nostalgia, and notions of the quality of image and its relationship to memory. His work is shown internationally in museums, galleries, art spaces, and festivals. He is currently Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader of the MA Digital Arts at the University of Greenwich.