Film Categories: science/medicine

  • Sound Seam

    ‘Sound Seam’ is a film which gives voice to the idea that every surface, in particular parts of our anatomy, is potentially inscribed with an unheard sound or echoes of voices from the past. The soundtrack’s musical composition is interlaced with a voice-over which draws on Rainer Maria Rilke’s text ‘Primal Sound’, where he reflects on the possibility of playing the coronal suture of a skull with a gramophone needle. The overlapping voices of the narratives tell a forensic love story of yearning, encryption, inscription, decoding, memory and erasure. The film uses microscopic photography, scanning electron microscopy, and sounds of…

  • Augury (Full Version)

    Through augury a city is founded: the bridge, the temple, the tower, the burial ground. Guided by an original soundtrack of Appalachian dirges and drones, eight connected works contemplate the history of, and possible responses to, technophilia. Using handheld and macro video, family super 8 and archival footage, Augury explores the fissures in constructed space for signs of personhood, care, and the possibility of a shared pre-linguistic ground. At each site, various strategies of ethical engagement are suggested: wait out the techno-enthrallment, unconceal the ancient myths, map alternative narratives, breathe through the machine, or seed wilderness in the cracks. Beneath…

  • Daisy Wheel (Part 02 of Augury)

    A bridge, to hold firm, demands a human sacrifice: the architect’s wife. Guided by an original soundtrack of Appalachian dirges and drones, this is the first of eight connected works which contemplate the history of, and possible responses to, technophilia. Through augury a city is founded: the bridge, the temple, the tower, the burial ground. Using handheld and macro video, family super 8 and archival footage, Augury explores the fissures in constructed space for signs of personhood, care, and the possibility of a shared pre-linguistic ground. At each site, various strategies of ethical engagement are suggested: wait out the techno-enthrallment,…

  • Ol’ Icarus (Part 06 of Augury)

    All that is solid melts into air. A requiem for Thomas Kuhn. Guided by an original soundtrack of Appalachian dirges and drones, this is the sixth of eight connected works which contemplate the history of, and possible responses to, technophilia. Through augury a city is founded: the bridge, the temple, the tower, the burial ground. Using handheld and macro video, family super 8 and archival footage, Augury explores the fissures in constructed space for signs of personhood, care, and the possibility of a shared pre-linguistic ground. At each site, various strategies of ethical engagement are suggested: wait out the techno-enthrallment,…

  • Hollow Casket (Part 07 of Augury)

    The gravity of thought. The inner teachings of fire. Guided by an original soundtrack of Appalachian dirges and drones, this is the seventh of eight connected works which contemplate the history of, and possible responses to, technophilia. Through augury a city is founded: the bridge, the temple, the tower, the burial ground. Using handheld and macro video, family super 8 and archival footage, Augury explores the fissures in constructed space for signs of personhood, care, and the possibility of a shared pre-linguistic ground. At each site, various strategies of ethical engagement are suggested: wait out the techno-enthrallment, unconceal the ancient…

  • Delta Sleep (08 of Augury)

    Reason descends into night. A seed awakes. Guided by an original soundtrack of Appalachian dirges and drones, this is the last of eight connected works which contemplate the history of, and possible responses to, technophilia. Through augury a city is founded: the bridge, the temple, the tower, the burial ground. Using handheld and macro video, family super 8 and archival footage, Augury explores the fissures in constructed space for signs of personhood, care, and the possibility of a shared pre-linguistic ground. At each site, various strategies of ethical engagement are suggested: wait out the techno-enthrallment, unconceal the ancient myths, map…

  • Dark Adaptation

    Dark Adaptation extends the experiments with alternative optical systems I began in Refraction Series (2008). These films are rooted in the experiments and writings of Ibn Al-Haytham and Isaac Newton, pioneering investigators of the nature of sight and light. In them I use fundamental phenomena such as refraction and thin-film interference to create images of pure prismatic colour in motion. Dark Adaptation is both a true representation of a series of tiny performances with light that were recorded by the camera, and an analogue for an interior journey. The music is by Graham Stewart of Violence and the Sacred. “Dark…

  • Athyrium filix-femina

    The second in a series of “quilt films” that pay homage to the work of pioneering female artists, “Athyrium filix-femina” reimagines Anna Atkins’ founding work in photography as a moving image. In 1843, Anna Atkins published the first book of photography, “Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions”, an exploration of regional botany that classified different kinds of algae using direct prints of the plants. The cyanotype process was a relatively short-lived as a dominant form of photography, however, it found refuge in the domestic sphere where it was used to decorate fabric for pillows, drapes and clothing. By combining filmmaking…

  • Stillness (Inertie)

    Through an innovative and unexpected approach to 16mm frame-by-frame cinematography, Pelletier offers a deconstructed and introspective view of portraiture. Idle faces come in and out of existence through a dance of light and texture, toying with our perceptual need to project our own image onto the abstract. Reminiscent of a meditative state, the concept of self can be fleeting.

  • 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