asquare

View work here: http://www.asquare.org/work/063200_recombined/

Recombinatory cinema suffers from two diametrically opposed issues. How do we make a film that is always different, whether that be through interaction or some other means, yet retain a narrative as defined by the author / director?

Above: Screenshots of the work

06:32:00 Recombined started as an idea to make a film which recombines itself continuously yet is cinematic in its experience with acceptable flow and / or believable cuts. It is a film, which chooses its source footage, documentation of one of the artist’s night’s sleep, as a starting point for conscious active creation later when awake. This sampling becomes a generalisation, a base of information that can be recombined in numerous ways, potentially any or all nights sleep yet guarantees a range of movements and possible outcomes that can be taken into account and planned for.

By combining the scenario of the sleep, the uncontrolled footage captured at this “acting stage” of the piece, with the controlled use of this footage when awake, the “editing stage”, the artist attempts to maximise creativity and expression. Both sides are equally important to the creation of the work. Each is sited as the location for the two stages of what classically make a cinematic creation, the “acting” and the “editing”, yet here nothing is acted for the camera and nothing has been edited out.

Above: Illustration of the works structure and how it functions

Essentially it becomes a choice between narrative and form. Form dominates and replaces narrative so that a system or schema can be put in place where the film directs itself. Narrative within the film becomes irrelevant instead the system becomes a narrative of all possible outcomes. The system tells a story of generalization / repetition / pattern instead of the actual sequence of images on the screen yet each time the movement through the sequence is credible because of their range of possibilities. Movement through the film is controlled by the technology and not predefined by the artist. This is echoed by the body’s movement on screen which is not consciously controlled by the artist at that time. Both the image of the artist and the technologies continuously different combinations of its movements form an unconscious or auto portrait of the artist.

06:32:00 Recombined was exhibited at Videoformes 2005.