Year of release: 1997
Original format: BetaSP and Super 8mm
Running time: 1 minute 15 seconds
Screening format: BetaSP and DVD
Credits: A film by Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore
Thanks: Lesley Bricknell
A One Minute commission for the launch of the Lux Centre; London Film-makers’ Co-op and National Lottery through the Arts Council of England
Distribution and sales: Sundog Media info@sundog.co.uk or LUX mike@lux.org.uk
Description
A series of experiments with light, time, and sense of place: a journey through the history of making visible the invisible, using naturally occurring pinhole phenomena and constructed pinhole devices for seeing, recording and apprehending the world.
Project is made up of hundreds of pinhole photographs taken on location across the south west peninsua, and includes time-lapse sequences of Mên-an-Tol and other ancient Celtic holed stones on Penwith moors and the Lizard. Images were taken using a home-made shoebox camera, 35mm colour and infrared film, and Kodachrome 40 Super 8 film.
Production notes
I’m really fascinated by light and how it makes us ‘see’ things. I wanted to have a go at making a pinhole photographs and one day I made a camera out of an old shoe box, black electricians’ tape, a piece of black paper and some tinfoil in which I pierced a hole with a fine sewing needle. The images captured on sheets of photographic paper curled inside my shoebox were mysterious, haunting; suggesting other realities, more esoteric perceptions. By removing the barrier of the lens and allowing light to trickle ‘unchanged’ into the camera obscura, I created a two-way mirror for my subjective perception that reflected my interior world.
I made the film in collaboration with photographer and film-maker Stuart Moore: we travelled across the south west peninsula and recorded our visits to the ancient holed stones of Kernow, discovered natural pinhole phenomena in woodlands, and explored pinhole and optical devices such as the gnomon - the part of a sundial that casts a shadow, from the Greek ‘that which reveals’. Our sound design reflects our sonic experience of these locations.
Note: there’s my 1997 blog, with extracts from my production journal about the making of Project and some of the pinhole photographs taken for the film, on Sundog Media
Publication and comments
Experimental film and video: a new anthology (2006) Dr Jackie Hatfield (ed.) Project Super 8mm film frame (enlarged) featured in Images chapter. Eastleigh: John Libbey ISBN 0-86196-664-3 p. 275
Project from Sundog Media on Vimeo.
Exhibition selected
2010 The Falmouth Connection Annexinema film programme, The Poly cinema, Falmouth, Kernow (8.30pm - 11.30pm 22 May 2010)
2009 Media Arts Festival Jill Craigie cinema, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK (27 September 2009) Media Arts Festival staff programme
2004
Experiments in Moving Image exhibition organised by Dr Jackie Hatfield and Stephen Littman: "a retrospective of experimental moving image including multi-screened and expanded works from the late 1960’s to date." Held at the original Lumiere Cinema, University of Westminster, London, UK. Screening from DVD. Other films selected were: Walking Out, and Elemental (26 January - 1 February 2004)
2001
Animation: synaesthesia in the experimental animated film curated by Suzie Hanna to mark the FAN International Animation Festival. Film screened on monitor in gallery, on looped DVD with the 16mm films Inner City, Night Sounding, and Cage of Flame. The Norwich Gallery, Norwich, UK. Exhibition with Oskar Fischinger, Jeff Keen, Len Lye, Norman McLaren, and Clive Walley (17 October - 10 November 2001)
2000
Screenspace exhibition, Gallery One, Watershed Media Centre, Bristol, UK. The exhibition also included work by Anna Lucas, Joe Magee, Sarah Miles, and Tony Sinden (1 - 16 April 2000)
1999
Experimenta Media Arts Wonderlust programme of artists’ moving image curated by Keely Macarow and Susi Allender, Cinemedia @ Treasury Theatre, Melbourne, Australia. “A program of recent film and video from major screen artists from the US, Germany, Norway, Canada, Australia and the UK” (programme notes) (12 September 1999)
Stuttgart Filmwinter Stuttgart, Germany (14 - 17 January 1999)
1998
Zone Multimedia Festival Archbishops’ Palace, Maidstone, Kent, UK. Beyond the Screen Towards the Electron programme (26 October - 5 November 1998)
International Hamburg Short Film Festival Hamburg, Germany. No Budget Competition (16 - 21 June 1998)
European Media Arts Festival Around the World in a Day programme (International Selection), Osnabrück, Germany (6 - 10 May 1998)
1997
Kinofilm ‘97 Manchester International Short Film and Video Festival Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK. One Minute Cinema programme (6 - 10 November 1997)
Bath Film Festival Royal Photographic Society, Bath, UK. And Action! a day of events for film-makers (9 October - 9 November 1997)
Screened as the short film before Andrew Kötting’s Gallivant, Lux cinema, London, UK (19 September - 2 October 1997)
The One Minute Commissions to celebrate the launch of the Lux cinema, London, UK. Presented by London Film Makers’ Co-op (Film-makers’ Party, 18 September 1997)