Part
of a review about our performances at Kill
Your Timid Notion in Dundee posted on the film london website.
You can read all of it here
A
key element to the performances, and an intention of the festival,
was to create opportunities for people to explore and experience
work first hand and expose and illuminate the processes behind the
work. This intention forms the central element of Emma Hart and
Benedict Drews' collaborations. Their work develops from their collaboration
as film-maker and musician and revolves around the way image and
sound interacts. The first piece they presented consisted of a live
projected image generated by filming particles vibrating on top
of a speaker playing the soundtrack to the film. The question of
which comes first, whether sound accompanies image or visa versa
is drawn into debate throughout the festival.
Their second performance involved running 16mm film through Ben’s
guitar strings before feeding it back into the projector. The film
consisted solely of clear and black leader. The joins between the
two film materials worked to 'pluck' the strings of the guitar and
generate the works sound track. Miraculously, the film withstood
the projection and only broke at the end, a brilliant chance conclusion
to a work that will always produce something different......
Review of Rotterdam film festival on www.villagevoice.com
:
.....Also present were a new generation of cinema
expanders. Bruce McClure, operating a bank of 16mm projectors customized
with guitar pedals and electrical transformers, conjured a one-man,
multi-hour symphony of psychoactive strobes, geometric light patterns,
and mind-blasting machine music. Duo Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder
used similar equipment to very different ends, evoking minimalist
configurations of dancing vertical lines or creating a choreographed
shadow play with subtly mystical overtones. These American artists
have been notables within the avant-garde circuit for years, but
all three reach new heights in real-time format, turning 16mm projectors
into formidable audio-visual instruments. Such a transformation
was succinctly captured by U.K. artists Emma Hart and Benedict Drew,
who threaded a long 16mm reel of black and white leader through
an electric guitar, each splice creating its own robotic kerrang.
With nods to both Fluxus conceptualism and punk-rock punch, the
untitled performance distilled the essence of 16mm's late-life artistic
explorations.
::::see full review::::
From Art
Review
"...hypnotic, tense and utterly entrancing,
at once magical and technically astute, a brilliantly restrained
drama between a projector and a guitar, between a man and a woman.”
(Ian White)
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