Re-imagining legacy: A woman experimental filmmaker’s response to colonisation

This practice-led research project analyses the creative and critical processes that occur when women visual artists respond to the legacy of colonisation. The research investigates the practices of selected visual artists, interrogates the candidate's creative practice, and analyses interview data. The creative practice component of the research analyses the critical and artistic strategies undertaken to produce an original set of six moving image artworks entitled Sankɔfa Dreaming. The creative practice develops an original artist method, Re-imagining Legacy. This method produces multivalent artworks that express a dynamic set of integrated critical standpoints on legacy and re-imaginings of history.

La divine comédie de Stan Brakhage : une lecture du film lyrique The Dante Quartet

Film abstrait peint à la main sur de la pellicule recyclée, The Dante Quartet de Stan Brakhage est une adaptation personnelle de La divine comédie de Dante. Agissant comme un palimpseste où chaque couche révèle des éléments caractéristiques de l’oeuvre du cinéaste ainsi que l’influence de certains poètes et artistes, The Dante Quartet reprend certaines caractéristiques de l’ekphrasis. Dans ce mémoire, je travaille avec l’hypothèse heuristique que The Dante Quartet est une ekphrasis, et plus précisément une ekphrasis inversée. Ce mémoire s’intéresse à ce qui reste du pré-texte après son passage d’un média à un autre. Compte tenu du laps temporel qui sépare ces deux œuvres, il est aussi question d’influences contemporaines au travail de Brakhage. Le cinéaste basant son travail sur les phénomènes de vision (et plus particulièrement sur les visions hypnagogiques dans le cas qui m’occupe), le point sera fait sur la pensée de Brakhage à ce sujet, pensée qu’il expose dans son livre-manifeste Metaphors on Vision.

The Body, the Film, the Archive and the Monster

Paper presented during the roundtable “The Exquisite Corpus: Film Heritage and Found Footage Films. Passing Through/Across Medias and Film Bodies” at the XIV MAGIS – Gorizia International Film Studies Spring School in Gorizia, Italy, March 9-15 2016

The more things change, the more they stay the same : the 2012 alternative film/video festival

The Alternative Film/Video Festival in Belgrade has historically been one of a triumvirate of critical festivals, with Pula’s MAFAF (1965-1990) and Zagreb’s initiating GEFF (1963-70), servicing experimental, exploratory, avant-garde, personal film in the former Yugoslavia, at Belgrade’s Academic Film Center (AFC) within the Student City Cultural Centre (DKSG). Initiated in 1982 it was resurrected in 2003 with a dual regional and international focus after a hiatus due to the collapse of the socialist states of the former Yugoslavia. As well as a series of curated and retrospective programs each competition program is now split into international and regional halves, selected by Greg de Cuir and Zoran Saveski with production support by Milan Milosavljević. Two film workshops were also available. One on scratch film by Ivan Ladislav Galeta, the other on filming and processing led by Vassily Bourakis. Initiated by de Cuir the first Alternative Film/Video Research Forum was part of the festival this year bringing together research on alternative/ experimental/ avant-garde/ underground film and video. Although I participated in this side-bar I will concentrate here more on discussions from the festival roundtable and contextualise a small number of films, a couple from competition but mainly regional work that I would find difficult to encounter without attendance here.

A sampled OZ Hystery: Australian alternative film from the 60s to the present

Regional Support Network presents:A Sampled OZ Hystery: Australian Alternative Film from the 60s to the PresentTuesday, October 21, 8pm ($5 or PWYC)Videofag (187 Augusta Avenue)(co-sponsored by Videofag and Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT))Curated by Dirk De Bruyn (in person)PROGRAM:Fun Radio - Nigel BuesstLeading Ladies - Lynsey MartinContemplation of the Rose - Michael LeeZoomfilm - Dirk de BruynDiscs - Dirk de BruynDolls - Paul FletcherExcerpt - Chris KnowlesExacuate - Michael Buckley and Sue McCauleyMorena - Marie CravenShort Lives - Neil TaylorE.G. (Elephant Girl) - Virginia HilyardTraum A Dream - Dirk de BruynKeepinTime Abstract - Steven McIntyreTime Ball - Marcia JaneWAP - Dirk de Bruyn

The house that we live In: Dirk de Bruyn film retrospective

A Two program retrospective of Dirk de Bruyn's experimental film career for 1973-2015

Chamber music in painting photography film

This exhibition expands upon the history, approaches of experimental film and image making. Through speculative and abstract approaches the artists appropriate images to deal with trauma, confusion and nostalgia. The artists in this exhibition use personal imagery to demonstrate abstract ideals and idiosyncratic perspectives. Work in the show will be made up of photographic prints, collage, 16mm film and video work. Through physical manipulations of the image surface, retrenching of forgotten archives and poetic layerings of time and place, this exhibition aims to examine the de-linear and personal ways artists can experiment with the image.Through incorporating work of long standing artists Dirk De Bruyn and Luigi Fusinato in contrast with the work of young artists Anna Higgins and Beth Caird, the exhibition will examine the relationship between experimental film from a pre-digital context and how it influences, echoes and evolves in a post-digital environment.

Delivery

'Delivery' (2005) was an installation work at MetroArts, Brisbane that incorporated drawings, paintings, video projections and temporary architectural structures. The work made central use out of a mock public event, staged in a Gold Coast park by the artist. Documentary footage of the ambiguous event comprised one of the video projections and formed the basic iconographic palette upon which the rest of the works were based. Using 3D animation as well as conventional drawing and paintign approaches, the works conveyed a palpable sense of fragmentation and social dislocation - a quality that was heightened by the reflective panels that bisected the exhibition space. The work was [part of the MetroArts Artistic Program in 2005 and its video elements were included in the 2008 exhibition Video Ground, curated by Rachel O'Reilly for Multimedia Art Asia Pacific (MAAP)/Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (Touring show). The work was the subject of a feature article by Mark Pennings in Eyeline magazine, and also appeared on the front cover of that issue.

Identidty, displacement and embodiment in women's independent cinema

Ma thèse examine les déplacements multiples – déportation, exil, voyage – et l‟expérience diasporique de différentes communautés ethniques dans le cinéma indépendant de trois réalisatrices et artistes contemporaines : Julie Dash, Rea Tajiri et Trinh T. Minh-ha. J‟analyse la déconstruction et reconstruction de l‟identité à travers le voyage et autres déplacements physiques ainsi que les moyens d‟expression et stratégies cinématographiques utilisées par ces artistes pour articuler des configurations identitaires mouvantes. Je propose de nouvelles lectures de la position des femmes dans des milieux culturels différents en considérant la danse comme une métaphore de la reconfiguration de l‟identité féminine qui se différencie et s‟émancipe des traditions culturelles classiques. Les expériences de l‟histoire et de la mémoire, qui sont vécues dans les corps des femmes, sont aussi exprimées par le biais des relations intermédiales entre la photographie, la vidéo et le film qui proposent des images de femmes variées et complexes.

Found Footage, mouvement cinématographique contemporain

Ce travail a pour objet le found footage, analysé en tant que pratique de recyclage culturel et comme important mouvement cinématographique de notre époque. L’étude trace d’abord un parallèle entre la fabrication du film d’images trouvées et le processus de recyclage industriel. Ensuite, le travail aborde les influences artistiques de ce mouvement du cinéma expérimental initié dans les années 1960, qui s’intensifie de plus en plus depuis l’avènement des dernières technologies numériques. En dernier lieu, l’étude propose une mise au point sur le found footage à l’ère des technologies numériques, en analysant les causes et conséquences de la (re)montée du mouvement, et en tenant compte de sa présence qui se multiplie sur l’Internet, par le biais du mashup.