As a filmmaker i'm interested in three aspects of moving image art, namely 1) the relations of cameraperson to filmed people of things, which is expressed in the shot, 2) the relations between shots which are manifest in the form of montage, and 3) the synchronous or contrapuntal relations between sounds and accompanying moving images. My films are an exploration of these elements of cinema, that is, shot, cut, and sync, and take as their topic the world at large, the plastic reality of film, the shadow reality of the theater, and the history of filmmakers developing a language at the margins of mainstream cinema.
Inspired by enjoyment of looking into a bonfire or hearth, seeing shapes coalesce and disperse fleetingly, or by feeling the mind's desire work with the forms of flame that dance. The cinema is a similar form to that. Made without a camera by etching unexposed film with sandpaper, chemicals and light.
1983, 16mm, color/si, 8m, $25
A three-part film whose original conceit was to illustrate the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The three films actually progress from terse storytelling to subjective brooding and to a dark psychological portrait of Orpheus, as if he forsaw the moment of his own story, when sight drives the image (the beloved) away.
1985, 16mm, color/si, 10m, $30
An attempt to respond to three things: 1) my daily life working, living in, and escaping from San Francisco, 2) montage, gesture, and technique in DEAD END DEAD END, a film by Daniel Barnett, and 3) cynicism that could remove one from constructive life. The montage of fine resonances and ecstatic rhythms suggests stories without elaborating a plot idea; this was the formal inspiration from Japanese haikai, or "linked poetry."
1978-1988, 16mm, color/si, 13m, $40
A set of films where the subject is human gesture as the trace of sentiment and perception. The recording of these traces constitutes writing, and watching the film, therefore, a kind of "reading." The images are commonplace and brief. The montage is a rapid articulation of light (in the tradition of Brakhage), which forms another layer of gesture. The films are improvised edits rather than preconceived studies.
1986-1988, 16mm, color/si, 17m, $50
The culmination of the expressive aspect of the work on the previous LIMN films, struggling with sexual tension and release, attempting to give the viewer experience transcending that realm (by beginning in it and finding a way beyond cyclic satisfactions).
1988, 16mm, color/si, 13m, $40
Five short films edited in precise relationship to an expressionistic piece for string quartet by Anton Webern (Op. 5, 1909). The material pictures dusk in narrow streets of Stockholm, an apprehensive arrival in Berlin, and shimmering blossoms at night in Paris.
1989, 16mm, b&w/color/si, 10m, $30
A dark, psychological sketch of Berlin's architecture.
1990, 16mm, color/si, 13m, $40
Two moving pictures side by side relating to each other in various simple ways, to a woman singing six songs about ephemeral love, and to my visit in Japan.
That here is no lasting union, only passing relation, is a recurring statement in Japanese poetry. This idea is taken with a light heart in linked poetry (a peculiar kind of sport-art), and with a tragic sense in love poems. I tried to arrange the material to accommodate both movements, pleasant and melancholic.
Through photographic process, also by superimposition, rapid alternation and the double screen format, there's a constant refraction through textures. The shifting of the differences between what you're looking at, what you think you're seeing and what it means to you are a little like the instabilities you feel thinking about your own life. I think the songs also refer to this.
Song translation included.
Note: Also available as a 16mm double projection.
1989-1998, 35mm, color/so, 15m, $50
EAGLE ROCK is a study in transparency in three movements. The images from an array of shots taken from various locations along the coastal waters of the Pacific collide, merge and dance. Most of the superimposition and some of the montage was done in camera. The shots are like flowers and i have selected and arranged them for your pleasure.
1998, 16mm, color/so, 17m, $50
2001, 16mm, b&w/color/so, ~4m, $20