Re: A 2010s List for Those That Can't Wait
Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:14 pm
As promised, here are my favorite experimental films from the decade:
Coming Attractions (Peter Tscherkassky, 2010) full video DVD
Tscherkassky does a bit of his usual found-footage-in-a-blender trick here, but frankly most of the appeal for me comes from the parts that he more or less leaves alone. A lot of this seems to come from discarded B-roll of women performing benign repetitive actions, presumably for commercials of some sort. It's generally just a quick but welcoming flick of the eyes and turn of the head--reset and repeat--but I find it completely hypnotic and want to marry the saxophone girl.
A Primer in Sky Socialism (Ken Jacobs, 2013) full video but in 2D 3D Blu-ray
Towards a Six-Dimensional Cinema (Peter Rose, 2018) excerpt
These movies were not cheap to acquire but oh so worth it. For the Peter Rose film, I started a correspondence with the director late last year by reaching out at the email listed on his website. Nice, humble guy, and I wanted to support him so I paid a fair chunk of change for him to load up a hard drive with a lot of his work. This was necessary because a high-res copy of the full hour-long version of this film takes up around 80GB. You can get a taste for it by watching the 10-minute excerpt that I included in the link, but note that some extra work is required to enjoy it in 3D. The quickest way is to distance yourself far enough from your screen that you can cross your eyes until the two images converge. You can also pay about $10 for a pair of Google Cardboard glasses, slide your smart phone in, and watch it more easily that way. Anyway, for the film itself, I think it's a really novel use of the 3D format. Rose constructs these artificial spaces, often composed from buildings or landscapes, where he'll put one on top of the other, or have them interact with each other from different perspectives. A common approach in experimental film perhaps, but something is added by it being in 3D, particularly when Rose puts his cameras in motion and you get to experience the thrill of moving in two directions at once. It's worth noting that Rose has made several other shorter 3D films since, which tend to pull from this larger work but add different musical accompaniment or narration, to kind of make them each their own thing.
I tie Jacobs' work to Rose's because Rose actually learned the ropes of making films in 3D from Jacobs' daughter Nisi. Anyway, there's a ridiculously expensive (which is why it's still in print despite only 500 copies being pressed) 3D Blu-ray available from Re:voir including three of his 3D works, each around an hour long. I actually just watched it for the first time this week (so the film cited above wasn't on my submitted list) but it's an absolute stunner. It's mostly just a series of still, blurry photographs, the kind you get with a long shutter speed and judicious use of a light pen. I'm not sure it would be all that impressive in 2D, but with the added depth it's really something to behold. This is 3D demo material as far as I'm concerned.
Paul Clipson
Union (2010) excerpt
The Liquid Casket/Wilderness of Mirrors (2014) full video DVD
Feeler (2016) full video DVD
Spectral Ascension (2017) full video
So like I mentioned for Rose above, apparently Clipson did a similar thing, where he would constantly experiment in a live setting with different combinations of the video elements of his films paired with various musical accompaniments. (I say "did" because he sadly died early in 2018, just a little over a decade after he had started making films in earnest.) This means that if you watch all of his films in succession they will likely start to feel pretty repetitive, but also that you can kind of pick your favorites à la carte, as I've done here. Clipson worked with some big names in the ambient music scene, including Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Liz Harris (aka Grouper), Sarah Davachi, and Lawrence English, so you have some good options to choose from. As for the films themselves, well, there's a certain vein of experimental cinema that I suppose can be described as "loads of images at the same time, set to music." That's certainly what you get here, but for me anyway, it's the height of this sort of thing.
Natura obscura (Paolo Gioli, 2013) DVD
As clear and hi-def as we can see nature now in all sorts of documentaries or whatever, it can be refreshing at times to see it from a completely different perspective, on the opposite end of the spectrum, from a place of barely being able to make it out. In place of partially blinding yourself and then going out amongst the flowers, I recommend watching this film, which Gioli shot through a pinhole.
Steve Hates Fish (John Smith, 2015) excerpt
Imagines the world taken over at every level by autocorrect, the effect achieved by tricking a translation app. In trying to track down the full version of this short film, I once again contacted the director at his website. Smith sent me a link to watch the film but asked me not to share, so if you'd like to see it yourself, I'd suggest you just reach out to him like I did.
Un rêve solaire (Patrick Bokanowski, 2016) excerpt Blu-ray
An hour-long portfolio for the director's various talents, all vaguely interested in the celestial.
Storyteller (Nicolas Provost, 2011) excerpt
It's a simple and obvious mirror effect being employed here but hey, if it works it works, transforming the Las Vegas Strip into an ever-morphing alien oasis. Would fit in well alongside other surreal city symphonies like N.Y., N.Y. and Side/Walk/Shuttle.
Coming Attractions (Peter Tscherkassky, 2010) full video DVD
Tscherkassky does a bit of his usual found-footage-in-a-blender trick here, but frankly most of the appeal for me comes from the parts that he more or less leaves alone. A lot of this seems to come from discarded B-roll of women performing benign repetitive actions, presumably for commercials of some sort. It's generally just a quick but welcoming flick of the eyes and turn of the head--reset and repeat--but I find it completely hypnotic and want to marry the saxophone girl.
A Primer in Sky Socialism (Ken Jacobs, 2013) full video but in 2D 3D Blu-ray
Towards a Six-Dimensional Cinema (Peter Rose, 2018) excerpt
These movies were not cheap to acquire but oh so worth it. For the Peter Rose film, I started a correspondence with the director late last year by reaching out at the email listed on his website. Nice, humble guy, and I wanted to support him so I paid a fair chunk of change for him to load up a hard drive with a lot of his work. This was necessary because a high-res copy of the full hour-long version of this film takes up around 80GB. You can get a taste for it by watching the 10-minute excerpt that I included in the link, but note that some extra work is required to enjoy it in 3D. The quickest way is to distance yourself far enough from your screen that you can cross your eyes until the two images converge. You can also pay about $10 for a pair of Google Cardboard glasses, slide your smart phone in, and watch it more easily that way. Anyway, for the film itself, I think it's a really novel use of the 3D format. Rose constructs these artificial spaces, often composed from buildings or landscapes, where he'll put one on top of the other, or have them interact with each other from different perspectives. A common approach in experimental film perhaps, but something is added by it being in 3D, particularly when Rose puts his cameras in motion and you get to experience the thrill of moving in two directions at once. It's worth noting that Rose has made several other shorter 3D films since, which tend to pull from this larger work but add different musical accompaniment or narration, to kind of make them each their own thing.
I tie Jacobs' work to Rose's because Rose actually learned the ropes of making films in 3D from Jacobs' daughter Nisi. Anyway, there's a ridiculously expensive (which is why it's still in print despite only 500 copies being pressed) 3D Blu-ray available from Re:voir including three of his 3D works, each around an hour long. I actually just watched it for the first time this week (so the film cited above wasn't on my submitted list) but it's an absolute stunner. It's mostly just a series of still, blurry photographs, the kind you get with a long shutter speed and judicious use of a light pen. I'm not sure it would be all that impressive in 2D, but with the added depth it's really something to behold. This is 3D demo material as far as I'm concerned.
Paul Clipson
Union (2010) excerpt
The Liquid Casket/Wilderness of Mirrors (2014) full video DVD
Feeler (2016) full video DVD
Spectral Ascension (2017) full video
So like I mentioned for Rose above, apparently Clipson did a similar thing, where he would constantly experiment in a live setting with different combinations of the video elements of his films paired with various musical accompaniments. (I say "did" because he sadly died early in 2018, just a little over a decade after he had started making films in earnest.) This means that if you watch all of his films in succession they will likely start to feel pretty repetitive, but also that you can kind of pick your favorites à la carte, as I've done here. Clipson worked with some big names in the ambient music scene, including Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Liz Harris (aka Grouper), Sarah Davachi, and Lawrence English, so you have some good options to choose from. As for the films themselves, well, there's a certain vein of experimental cinema that I suppose can be described as "loads of images at the same time, set to music." That's certainly what you get here, but for me anyway, it's the height of this sort of thing.
Natura obscura (Paolo Gioli, 2013) DVD
As clear and hi-def as we can see nature now in all sorts of documentaries or whatever, it can be refreshing at times to see it from a completely different perspective, on the opposite end of the spectrum, from a place of barely being able to make it out. In place of partially blinding yourself and then going out amongst the flowers, I recommend watching this film, which Gioli shot through a pinhole.
Steve Hates Fish (John Smith, 2015) excerpt
Imagines the world taken over at every level by autocorrect, the effect achieved by tricking a translation app. In trying to track down the full version of this short film, I once again contacted the director at his website. Smith sent me a link to watch the film but asked me not to share, so if you'd like to see it yourself, I'd suggest you just reach out to him like I did.
Un rêve solaire (Patrick Bokanowski, 2016) excerpt Blu-ray
An hour-long portfolio for the director's various talents, all vaguely interested in the celestial.
Storyteller (Nicolas Provost, 2011) excerpt
It's a simple and obvious mirror effect being employed here but hey, if it works it works, transforming the Las Vegas Strip into an ever-morphing alien oasis. Would fit in well alongside other surreal city symphonies like N.Y., N.Y. and Side/Walk/Shuttle.