Suffering for the Duration is cinematic critique at its most primitive. It explores the physical properties and limitations of the apparatus by burning the surface of 16mm film with a soldering iron. In doing so we witness the chemical changes that occur within the celluloid as it attempts to hold itself together. It is cinema fighting for its own life, and in that fight we witness the literal disintegration of the close up, the wide shot, etc., leaving in their place a violent abstraction of light and shadow.

Fun World, 2011

In Fun World I work within the aesthetic discourse of narrative cinema and use that established grammar to play against viewer expectations, in turn dismantling any preconception one could have regarding the images meant to logically proceed other images. An example can be found in the film's second shot as we move through a child's birthday party. The move at first appears to be a dolly towards the Mother, yet as we pass her it becomes a move towards her son, but we ultimately pass him, and move towards an empty booth. A shot that, at various moments in its duration seemed to have a specific focus, is revealed to have no true subject. This is an example of the plurality of the undefined
image; “une image juste” rather than “juste une image.” When you refuse to define your images you open them to a multitude of possible meanings, thus freeing them from the “image stream” and releasing them to a much larger series of histories. Not simply a history of cinema, but also a history of images. Through this technique one can approach what Robert Bresson defined as “cinematography.”

Widescreen is a technological separation of the elements that we popularly define as cinema: time, light, and spectacle. Exhibited ideally as two rear-projected screens installed indirect conversation with one another, the audio/video are looped to create a sort of moving image corridor. Using these exhibition techniques allows for the film to interact with its environment as well as the viewer. Patrons would be allowed to pass between the two screens/walls adding to the piece a multitude of personal narratives and desires; elements that are ultimately translated into the cinema of a given society. Those stories exist here literally and in the ever fluctuating space between light and time.

Spaces was my first exercise in micro-tragedy - a concept more fully realized with Fun World.         Inspired by Henrik Ibsen's Lady From the Sea, a micro-tragic structure is comprised of inconsequential moments that are not necessarily tragic in and of themselves, but rather allude to a much larger, unseen tragedy. This “implied tragedy” is suggested as much by what is presented to the viewer as it is by the narratives that already exist within the collective unconscious of the audience as a whole.