Light play

An abstract play of light, colour, geometric shapes and patterns synchronised with synthesised music. The image patterns have been created by scratching, drawing, painting and overlaying directly on clear and opaque film and fragments of photographed positive and negative images.

223

"There are those films that are formalistic by design – the materialist films, which can’t be accused of doing injustice to their subject matter. Most notable in this area has been Dirk de Bruyn’s "Direct on Film" series. The resulting films (Vision, 223, among others) comprise of frantic flashes of colour and shape – very annoying to the viewer. But once the filmmaker (or someone) explains that the films are visual music, it’s surprising how watchable they become! This example points to the importance of the viewer in the experimental film scenario. Whilst the modes of viewing for particular types of films take time to learn, a certain facilitation of them is possible if the viewer is open and adaptable." http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/debruyn_films.html

"With 223 I used Photographs from my past as a base. It gives the eyes something to come back to from the faster abstract shapes. The Pos/Neg flickering gives a feeling of depth. Its called 223 because I had some letterset of the numbers 223. There is a layering of images and techniques."

Migraine particles

A hand drawn film dedicated to Len Lye.

Vision

"No photographed images. All handmade. It's all these squares, lines. The main techniques were bleaching and dyeing and sticking letraset-type material to the film strip. Used the pos/neg thing, inserting film strips to sustain shapes, otherwise you're talking about the one film all the time: it begins to look the same. There is a growing need to sustain shapes, patterns, etc. Hence the squares, lines. Breaking away from the rush of shapes. It's more of a problem to get away from in Vision because there are no photographic images. A very ordered film. Very Dutch. Took it all out of 800 ft. of this type of stuff and ended up with 150 ft. of selected squares and circles. The images don't rush, they much more fold over the top of one another. Mondrian-inspired." http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/debruyn_films.html

Gridgrid

A man alone. Cabin fever. Invoking a feeling of isolation and fragmentation.

Dirk de Bruyn: Grid grid 2004 10:00
Dirk de Bruyn was born in Dordrecht and moved with his parents to Australia when he was eight years old. Most of his work deals with the trauma of migration and cultural displacement, expressed in the nature of the medium film itself with the flicker and the after image. Grid Grid is a horizontal layering of footage in combination with drawings, letters and numbers which is typically of Dirk's films. A nervous movement referring to the movements of horizontal interference on a TV screen, in an audio visual play with the fascinating sounds by Dan Armstrong.

Retrospective screening program

A peek into the past of an Australian experimental cinema legend. Glorious 16mm film program with sympathetic vibrations by Jon Dale, Joel Stern, Lloyd Barrett & Joe Musgrove.

Expanded cinema

3-screen film performance constituted from hand drawn direct-on-film imagery and scratched soundtracks that are further manipulated through the performance to comment and respond on the position accorded such marginal work, namely its complete erasure and marginalization within critical debate in Australia, and to further lay bare the processes of image manipulation.

Inside the outside

Inside the Outside is a three screen, gesture and sound poetry performance. It extends the concerns of Traum A Dream (Australia 2003) into the immediacy of the performance situation. Traum A Dream has been described as "A representation of traumatised space, depicting a person who is consumed by a body of pain" and enlists the strategies of Direct Cinema, punk and Artaud's 'cruel' performance.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, a multi-screen film and sound poetry presentation addressing issues of traumatic effect/affect.