I trained as a painter and sculptor in Lima, Peru, then in London. I worked for a decade as an artist while earning a living as a film editor. I became interested in research in film from 1977 onwards, establishing with Alain-Alcide Sudre a non-profit organization, the Experimental Film Archives of Avignon. The Archives have become a collection of 16mm films as well as a paper document collection. The first is made available to the public with films rented from other sources by means of annual screenings and the second can be consulted freely as a reference library. At one point I wrote a doctoral dissertation entitled "The Experimental Film as an Instrument for Visual Research." I also teach a filmmaking course at the Sorbonne, Paris, with the grand title of Associate Professor.
Although I began filmmaking by pursuing concerns common to other contemporary art practices, my attention was rapidly attracted by a twofold feature of the photographic procedure which allows one to handle the content and the form of the material while the process inscribes automatically some of the traces and characteristics of the reality being recorded. This paradox led me to study perception, the possibilities and problematics of research in art as well as how theoretical approaches to experimental film and traditional cinema have evolved. Underlying these studies is a search for meaningful ways to work with film regarding our contemporary society controlled by multinational economics. As the totalitarian environments of urban landscapes become more and more uninhabitable, I seek, against the grain in our "virtual" space age it seems, a more human physical home.
This reel consists of three short films, two in black and white and one in color, that treat of a water wheel on the Sorgue. The essence of the work rests on a series of cross-references that are set up between the operational mechanisms of the filmed object and the recorded characteristics foregrounded by the choice of film stocks and filming circumstances. The title reflects the process involved. Roulement = rotation, rouerie = wiliness, aubage = paddle wheel unit.
1978, 16mm, b&w/color/si, 15m (24fps), $45
This film is a two-projector-one-screen piece: - one B/W (positive) print, one W/B (negative) print - the two reels are struck from the same negative and should be projected superimposed on a single screen. If the two projectors are not locked in sync, the projectionist may occasionally stop one of them briefly to try to keep the two pictures in sync. The person projecting may also move one projector slightly, placing the two images side by side momentarily. The two reels should be re-superimposed afterwards.
The film's title stems from Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in which certain observations are used to define notions regarding the appearance of things in true or apparent motion. The material was structured while filming one evening the July 14th street celebrations: lights strung across the road, a band, balloons, cars, an ambulance, a horse, fireworks and people dancing on the Pont d'Avignon.
Special note: This film is to be projected in double-screen form - two projectors are necessary.
1979, 16mm, b&w/si, 14m, $40
The French term parcelle refers to a fragment, particle or bit. Composed frame by frame in the camera, the film rests upon the alternate appearance and variable duration of tiny colored squares and circles placed on a black background and inserted in series between plain white or colored images. Although the film may appear conventional on a technical level, conceptually this is not the case given that the work is based on situations where the sense of perception processes images in various time lengths according to the characteristics viewed.
1979, 16mm, color/si, 3m (24fps), $20
This film presents, in the order they were filmed, six different viewpoints of a merry-go-round. In each case the focus is adjusted so as to select, isolate and inscribe parts of the filmed scene onto the film strip in a way that allows elements of color in movement to be recombined in a particular manner during the projection of the film. COULEURS MÉCANIQUES shares similar concerns to those found in ROULEMENT, ROUERIE, AUBAGE.
1979, 16mm, color/si, 16m (24fps), $50
Recorded frame by frame in the camera, the focus of each frame is adjusted so that certain graphic features of items in the street that gives its name to the film are extracted and inscribed onto the film strip in a way which allows their characteristics to be seen, when projected in succession on the screen, as parts of a spatiotemporal image stretching from a position on a balcony over a canalized river to the road. The film is composed of twelve two-and-three-quarter minute reels, each of which was filmed on a different day throughout a six-month period. No editing was undertaken other than joining the reels together. This was done in a slightly non-chronological order so as to avoid accentuating anecdotal aspects of the scene.
1979, 16mm, color/si, 31m (24fps), $90
The film presents in succession from a single viewpoint a frame-by-frame construction of a peach orchard with pink blossoms (April 1), green leaves (April 16) and red-yellow peaches (June 24). Although the filming procedure is similar to RUE DES TEINTURIERS, choices pertaining to the organization of the material in relation to the characteristics of the location define the specificity of CHAMP PROVENÇAL.
1979, 16mm, color/si, 9m (24fps), $30
The film presents a field of sunflowers. The focus is adjusted frame by frame in succession according to a series of patterns on particular plants situated in different parts of the field. The diverse configurations placed on separate frames of the film strip appear, when projected successively, simultaneously on the screen. Thus, filmed one after another at different focal lengths, the sunflowers combine during projection to form one spatiotemporal image. LES TOURNESOLS COLORÉS is a capricious version of the film.
1982-1983, 16mm, color/si, 6m (24fps), $25
This film is one of a series of films: Arles, Paris, La Ciotat, Avignon. All four films share a similar organizational procedure in that their material is woven together on an ordinary printer according to a certain pattern. The problems that arise are tackled, however, in a slightly different way in the case of each film. In SCÈNES DE LA VIE FRANÇAISE: PARIS, several Parisian landmarks - Jardin du Luxembourg, Place de la Republique, Rue St. Antoine, Canal St. Martin, Place de la Bastille - are presented by means of a composition of frames recorded at various times from a similar viewpoint.
1986, 16mm, color/si, 26m (24fps), $80
Whereas throughout the film SCÈNES DE LA VIE FRANÇAISE: PARIS the image is formed by means of relatively long sections recorded on different dates, in SCÈNES DE LA VIE FRANÇAISE: LA CIOTAT, the image showing the port, the dry docks, the workers leaving the shipyards, a tanker launched, fishermen and the beach, rests on the interweaving of short moments. Hence in the case of this film the configuration is composed of two distinct but closely situated durations.
1986, 16mm, color/si, 31m (24fps), $90
This film, made in a similar way to SCÈNES DE LA VIE FRANÇAISE: PARIS or SCÈNES DE LA VIE FRANÇAISE: LA CIOTAT, shows a park in Avignon, the bus stop by the main market, a view of Rue des Teinturiers and a small square.
1986, 16mm, color/si, 11m (24fps), $30
This piece of film was initially shown at the 1989 Toronto Congress and not destined to be screened again in its present form. Thus the title IMPROMPTU refers partly, due to people having asked to screen the reel, to the distribution of a print. However, each scene being a combined image filmed frame by frame alternatively at two or more periods during a given day, a procedure depending for its exact execution on the manner in which the film situation evolved, "impromptu" also refers to the tendency of reality to veer towards the unexpected.
The sound was supplied fortuitously by the lab and some attention should be given not to cut off the activity near the top edge of the frame.
1989, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25
Soundtrack by Katie O'Looney.
Situated in an environment where nature and social-industry technology meet, the film attempts a visual dialogue with (and critique of) mainstream society's concerns. To the extent that it refers to the economy of means involved in relation to what is stated, the work is both a reflection on the possibilities of the medium and an enquiry concerning the implications of the reality filmed.
1992, 16mm, color/so, 13m, $40
BOUQUETS 1 to 10 consists of ten one-minute films covering a variety of subjects. After working for nearly two decades on frame-by-frame in-the-camera structuring devices (my films PARCELLE, RUE DES TEINTURIERS, CHAMP PROVENÇAL, Retour d'un rep?re, Retour d'un repere composé, LES TOURNESOLS, IMPROMPTU and QUIPROQUO develop such processes), I managed in this series to abandon the stationary camera while still retaining what I consider a necessary graphic coherence. The procedure is too intricate to describe briefly but basically it entails using the film strip as a canvas with the freedom to film frames on any part of the strip in any order, running the film through the camera as many times as needed.
Each bouquet of flowers is also a bouquet of frames mingling the plants to be found in a given place with the activities that happen to be there at the time.
Note: Each BOUQUET is one minute, but film starts and ends with three seconds of black; six seconds of black in between each BOUQUET.
1994-1995, 16mm, color/si, 11m, $35
Worn out by the sea, the Sète fishing boats decide to spend a day in the country amongst the poppies surrounding Arles, Bédarrides and the Thouzon Grottos.
2000, 16mm, color/si, preferably 18 fps, 2.7m, $25
Little is necessary for everything to appear differently. The date, the hour, the weather, the space’s layout, one’s glance or presence of mind…can make everything change. The boats sail out of the Vieux port in Marseilles to be amongst the poppy fields.
2001, 16mm color/si, preferably 18 fps, 2.6m, $25
BOUQUETS 21-30 is a part of the ecological BOUQUETS series, consisting of one-minute films composed in the camera by weaving the characteristics of different environments with the activities there at the time. The filming basically entails using the filmstrip as a canvas with the freedom to Film frames on any part of the strip in any order, running the film through the camera as many times as needed.
Thus each bouquet of flowers is also a unique bouquet of film frames.
BOUQUET 21 was filmed in a tiny paradise which took years to create, La Baraque, an organic farm situated 2 kms from Aujac, in the far corner of Gard, sandwiched between Lozère and Ardèche.
BOUQUET 22 meanders over the mountain pastures near the summit of the Grand Perron des Encombres, not far from a macrobiotic centre at Bettaix, in the Belleville Valley, Savoie.
BOUQUET 23 shows Terre Vivante, a centre focusing on ecological issues,located on a site of fine cultivated, or wild, flower and vegetable gardens strewn over a hillside amongst ponds. Open to the public, it organizes numerous events and publishes excellent books and a magazine.
BOUQUET 24 was filmed in a pastoral setting around Beausite, an inn which provides organic meals in its preserved 1912 ambience, in Chemin-dessus, on a mountain slope 7 kms from Martigny, Switzerland.
BOUQUET 25 was shot in Cantal, around Le Tahoul, the Falgoux Valley and the Aulac Pass. This reel mingles the few flowers uneaten by the Salers cows with the village residents going about their affairs.
BOUQUET 26 was filmed in the middle of the animals of a small farm, La Terra di Mezzo, perched on hillside terraces of Liguria, Italy.
BOUQUET 27, moves around a macrobiotic centre in St. Gaudens, Haute-Garonne. Amongst glimpses of the surrounding countryside leading to the village of St. Béat, it shows its residents working on the land, repairing items or making rice biscuits.
BOUQUET 28 takes place on a farm, Mas de Cocagne, Aujac, Gard, which has developed from an abandoned coal-mining area into an agricultural-ecological site over twenty-five years. The topics include abundant floral vegetation, the Château d¹Aujac on the hillside in the distance, work on the farm, builders erecting a roof, washing being hung up and to end a contented frog amongst the pink water lilies.
BOUQUET 29 shows a very isolated 18th c farmhouse, Fra Boyer, on the borders of the Forêt Domaniale de l¹Oule, near Montmorin, Hautes-Alpes. The floral vegetation attracts numerous butterflies and other flying insects, the family grow vegetables and collect the cherries while two donkeys help themselves.
BOUQUET 30 treats the farm of Le Lanteïrou, Champagne, near Les Vastes, Haute-Loire. One sees the cows, the farmer by the house, a member of the family in the bed he has built, complete with bedside lamp, under a nearby tree, and an elderly neighbor walking between the two white chairs set up at either end of her field amongst the vegetable patches.
2001-2005, 16mm, color/si, preferably 18 fps., 14m, $45
In this film we move away from the notion of a work based on a preconceived filming procedure adjusting the visual characteristiques of the image in order to approach the temporal dimension of a pond full of frogs. In front of such creatures that tend to be elusive there arises a question of more general interest as to how can one record moments that are meaningful, how can one render visible, present a moment that is alive and connect the items forming the different recorded moments up together?
On s¹éloigne dans ce film d¹une oeuvre dont la forme est conçue a priori pour moduler de diverses manières les caractéristiques visuelles de l¹image pour tenter de pénétrer dans la dimension temporelle d¹une mare peuplée de grenouilles.
Devant ces sujets qui tendent à être élusifs, la question d¹intérêt plus général posée est comment saisir des moments ayant un sens, comment render visible, présent, un moment vivant et lier les éléments composant les différents moments les uns aux autres?
2006, 16mm color/si, 24 fps, 8.31m, $35