Film Categories: Abstraction

  • 6500

    The color temperature of different light sources is measured in Kelvin. 6500 Kelvin corresponds to the value of overcast daylight and is used as a standard for the neutral registration of white surfaces. Unconsciously the human eye adapts to different light conditions, while cameras need adjustment through white balance. 6500 is a short video essay on the relativity of words, questioning the application of absolute values in an argument, visualized through a play on colors, their spaces, and their highly subjective perception. Quotes from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Remarks on Colour” emphasize this rhythmic flickering and slightly absurd conversation between colour and…

  • Centre of the Cyclone

    In the province of the mind there are no limits. However, in the province of the body there are definite limits not to be transcended.” John C Lilly An invocation for the transcendence between the corporal and metaphysical, the passage is guided by marooned sailors, a moment of celestial chance, demolition derbies, and a slipping into the ether

  • Burning Mountains That Spew Flame (Montañas ardientes que vomitan fuego)

    The interior of the earth became a refuge from the threat that moved closer and closer to the island. The volcanic tubes served as communication vessels between time and space. This was where they experimented their resistance.

  • Somnium Lapidum (Dream Stones)

    This stop-motion 16mm film offers an audiovisual meditation on the material animation of stones. The concept is inspired by Camillo Leonardi’s “Speculum Lapidum”, published in 1533, which describes the magical healing virtues of a variety of stones, categorized by colour. The character-based animated vignettes are inspired by the woodcuts in “De Hortus Sanitatis”, a natural history encyclopedia published in 1485, which details various methods of harnessing the power of gems. It was believed at the time that a given gem’s powers could be absorbed through focused viewing. Proposing an analogy between this belief and attraction to cinema, this film offers…

  • Watching the Detectives

    Immediately after the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, amateur detectives took to the internet chat rooms to try and find the culprits. Users on reddit, 4chan and other gathering spots poured over photographs uploaded to the sites, looking for any detail that might point to the guilt of potential suspects. Using texts and jpegs culled from these investigations, “Watching the Detectives” narrates the process of crowd-sourcing culpability. “Chris Kennedy’s latest offering is…a half-hour meta-doc about the online sleuthing surrounding the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013. Imagine ‘Patriot’s Day’ without Mark Wahlberg leading the charge. Instead, a steadfast…

  • The Films of David Rimmer

    Available for purchase in the CFMDC Shop: https://www.cfmdc.org/shop. This three-volume set brings together some of David Rimmer’s most seminal early works. Born in Vancouver, BC, Rimmer has been a pivotal figure in the city’s art scene since the early ’70s. Known for his experimentation with superimposition, looping and optical printing, Rimmer’s aesthetic reflects a “West Coast sensitivity to landscape, poetry and psychedelia” (Chris Kennedy). Volume One Square Inch Field -1968 / 13 min / 16mm / CLR / Sound Migration – 1969 / 11 min / 16mm / CLR / Sound Landscape -1970 / 8 min /16mm / CLR /…

  • I Want To Kill Myself

    Contemplating suicide: a biography.

  • Membrana Mortis (Dead Film)

    “Membrana Mortis” is a meta-film, a chaotic assemblage of re-photographed and chemically manipulated image fragments culled from a damaged roll of film that was nearly un-projectable. The films title suggests a two-fold intention – here process and existence pre-suppose one another, at once an elegy to a dead film and observance of new genesis. This film was commissioned by the Independent Filmmakers Cooperative of Ottawa with support from the Canada Council for the Arts for Origin 8, a program commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Super 8 format.

  • Experiments In Light

    This short explores light as a meditative state while encouraging the viewer to take a moment to be present within themselves. Taking footage from my narrative self portrait A Celebration of Darkness (2015) and recutting it to refocus on the various macro shots of crystals as an expansion on the theme of light and darkness. The images in this short was made possible by the LIFT/ImagineNATIVE 16 mm Film Mentorship in 2015, it’s post production was funded by the Ontario Arts Council Access and Development grant in 2016 and completed as part of my Media Artist in Residence with Workman…

  • Four Vignettes

    Four everyday scenes presented as sequential images with generative sound. A home made optical Theremin transmutes the visual to the audible twenty-four times per second. This film was created during TR:AFICC, a residency in TRUCK Gallery’s CAMPER, and was a prototype and proof-of concept for the expanded cinema work Circles of Confusion.