The second day out and about with the wonderous Aesthetica Short Film Festival was spent mostly watching artist films in the According To Mcgee Gallery.
A small selection of chairs was set up in the back room facing a medium sized screen. It was great being able to watch the works on such a large screen instead of galleries’ usual use of black box television sets – which I know is what they used in the New School House Gallery. The only issue I had with the environment was the type of space, because although the organisers claim, ‘Artists’ film does not need to be confined to the white cube’ – they decided to screen them in two of the whitest cubes in York. It would have been a lot more interesting to see them on, say, the large screens at Kings Manor. But hey, it was exciting to see them for the first time at the festival and was an important recognition for art films in the film world and film based art in the art world.
Dust to Dust (Becky Weston, UK, 4m 6s) (ARTIST FILM 1)
The dust in this short really looks a lot more like talcum powder, but this doesn’t stop the film being an interesting meditation on the movements of a musician minus his music. Falling down through the sleeves of his jacket over his fingers and then through the air, the talc shot in slow motion creates lingering pathways in the air around his sorrowful decaying body. A quick but mesmerising watch. E.M.
Wieczor (An Evening) (Sofia Bohdanowicz, Canada, 18m 50s) (ARTIST FILM 1)
Shot in her late grandmother’s vacated house, Bohdanowicz allows us a glimpse into her relative’s personality and daily habits. Composed of long static shots, the film allows us to appreciate the composition of say chairs at a table, or to smile at the notes on the fridge reminding the owner to have kind and generous behaviour. The film is accompanied by classical music, which changes the tone of the film to a darker one when the camera moves from the kitchen to the dining room by building up the crescendo. This reminds us of the more negative side to life. E.M.
The Sprawl (Tom German, UK, 4m 5s) (Artist Film 3)
This film wishes to draw attention to the ‘underlying beauty’ of urban architecture by focussing in on the detailed textures, patterns and shadows. The concrete hills of Plymouth are the subject, a place already defended by The GRID, and so though the images are familiar to this reviewer, the abstraction of forms still creates a certain contemplative beauty. R.H.
MUC 72 (Jamie Buckley, UK, 4m 30s) (Artist Film 5)
Buckley merges archival and his own footage of the 1972 Olympic Village to compare the two distinct phases of the site during and post Games. Once the space of expectation and physical prowess, the Modernist architecture is now used as affordable housing for those in Munich, some of which is shown decaying and crumbled. There is a sense of ominence created by the absence of narration or speech combined with a steady crawling beat in the background before an abrupt stop; this perhaps suggests the events of the 1972 Olympics, known as the Munich Massacre which saw 11 Israeli competitors kidnapped and killed by Palestinian gunmen in the team quarters. Alternatively, it demonstrates the decay of built spaces once their original public purpose is no longer needed. R.H.
Featured Image: Jamie Buckley – MUC 72
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
