Poetry

An Introduction to the Theory of Eclipses

eclipse (n. countable and uncountable)

1. An alignment of astronomical objects whereby one object comes between the observer and another object.
2. A seasonal state of plumage in some birds adopted temporarily after the breeding season.
3. Obscurity, decline, downfall.

An Introduction to the Theory of Eclipses has its premiere screening at Another Whole in the Head – Warped Dimension FilmFest 2022, run on-line out of San Francisco, 14-15 May, 2022. It was developed from some animated sequences I made for our 2022 Adelaide Fringe show UGLY – A NOT Fairytale, in which one of the characters was Eclipse, played by Michael Jaxon Carson. The original concept was inspired by Inori-Prayer-, a short video made … Click here for more.

The Port Trilogy

Over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed spending time around the Port Adelaide area of South Australia. The Port is steeped in histories: First Nations, Colonial, Modern. To varying degrees, it lays bare the evidence of contests within and between these multi-faceted stories. As a sea-port with changing priorities, its environment is constantly under threat from natural and anthropogenic sources.

I’ve used footage taken around Port Adelaide in two of my most successful videos, floodtide and after-image. In each case, the raw images have been composited with multiple sources and animated to create visual worlds that hover in an uncertain space between the real and the imaginary.

Since 2018, I’ve been privileged to be part of a group of … Click here for more.

Video, poetry and translation…

From Greek to English… We also have a version in Greek and Spanish.

I’ve always loved language and languages. I did Latin, French and German at school and I could easily have ended up studying linguistics in a slightly different universe. For me, poetry and experimental writing are fundamental ways to explore the limits of language: to try to describe what cannot be put into words, to find out what happens when language is stripped down to its essentials (whatever they are…), to discover how the visual, oral and aural aspects of language interact.

Combining video with poetry and experimental writing has been a revelation in this context. In a video, text can be dynamic, as it changes and … Click here for more.

REELpoetry Festival 2022

distURBANce promo

REELpoetry Festival 2022 is fabulous program of live and streamed poetry videos, run by Public Poetry out of Houston, Texas, 25-27 February, 2022.

As well as having two videos as official selections in competition program (these days and colony collapse), I have curated a program of videos, distURBANce. In contrast to the reflective nature of many poetry videos, there are no idyllic pastorals here. Instead we have a program of urban stories, distorted by the power of advertising, social media, celebrity, with more than a hint of corruption, crime and miscellaneous bad behaviour, featuring work by Rich Ferguson and Mark Wilkinson (Human Condition); Christine Hooper and Victoria Manifold (On Loop); Mark Niehus … Click here for more.

The Life We Live Is Not Life Itself wins Festival Fotogenia 3!

Much to my delight, the video I made with Tasos Sagris and Whodoes, The Life We Live Is Not Life Itself won the Avant-Garde prize for the top film in Fotogenia 3 international festival of video poetry and divergent narratives, held in Mexico City 24-27 over November 2021. The whole festival was a magnificent feast of diverse forms and voices. The finalist list included some of the best videos I’ve ever seen. So to come out on top is incredibly humbling. Massive thanks to Tasos Sagris and Whodoes for entrusting me with their fantastic words and music and the Institute for Experimental Arts in Athens for supporting the project.

The video was a major technical challenge that developed … Click here for more.

Videos screen in three Portuguese festivals!

November is a big month for my videos, with screenings all around the world (!!) As part of the mix, I have work showing in three different curated video art festivals in Portugal.

Image Play III – International Video Art Festival curated by Hernando Urrutia runs on-line from Madeira on 4/5th November 2021. It includes epithelium, made with Catherine Truman and Angela Chappell, and SPSS, one of my earlier animated, computer voiced pieces. The first session can be viewed on Youtube here and the second session here.

Transborda III – QTV International Video Art Installation, curated by Alberto Guerriero as part of the 7th Festival of Literature and Cinema in Alcobara, running from 1-21 November. I … Click here for more.

The Life We Live… and after-image at Tranås At The Fringe International Arts Festival

Two of my videos The Life We Live Is Not Life Itself, made in collaboration with Tasos Sagris and Whodoes, and after-image are official selections at the 2021 Tranås At The Fringe International Arts Festival running 16-24 November 2021 in Sweden. I was interviewed film festival curator, Laura Bianco, about these videos, how I made them and theoretical or scientific underpinnings. Both videos explore the notion of uncertain narrators, with shifting voices, perspectives, and time lines in environments that are disturbingly a little off-kilter and disorienting. Indeed, as I explain in the interview, nearly every scene in each of the videos has been composted from multiple elements: almost nothing is as it seems in real life.

TRANSBORDA III – Q-TV: the response of video art to the quarantine times

TRANSBORDA III Q-TV: the response of video art to the quarantine times is part of the Festival of Books and Movies – Alcobaça in Portugal, 1-21 November, 2021. Curated by Alberto Guerreiro, the event features a diverse international line-up of video artists. Amongst so many good friends and colleagues, I’m delighted that two of my videos are on the program: ISOLATION PROCEDURES and future perfect. I also have a component in the international collaborative project, Chant for a Pandemic by Dee Hood.

ISOLATION PROCEDURES was recorded during the 2020, mostly on location at Sleep’s Hill, Blackwood, and Belair, South Australia, where I live, under partial lockdown conditions. The audio samples are made from birds, frogs and voices in the … Click here for more.

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