DRIFT STUDIES
Sunday 31 October 2004, at 9pm
London National Film Theatre NFT3

WATER, WATER
Nicky Hamlyn, UK, 2004, 16mm, b/w & colour, silent, 11 min
Water Water revisits the bathroom location of a previous film White Light (1996). It is based around a set of antinomies that operate at various levels, from between frames to between the two halves of the film. The black and white first part is composed of individually filmed frames (animation) which form shots of interlaced contrary motion that nevertheless can be read as sequences of individual frames, and/or in which alternate frames are lit in contrasting ways so as to emulate negative-positive juxtapositions. In the colour second half, dissolves replace cuts, light softens and contrast decreases. Continuity, by way of isomorphic features in the room, replaces the discontinuities of part one. (Nicky Hamlyn)

ASPECT
Emily Richardson, UK, 2004, 16mm, colour, sound, 9 min
Aspect was filmed in a forest over the period of a year. Using photographic techniques such as time-lapse and long exposures on single film frames the forest year is condensed into a few minutes. Light, colour and shadow travel across its surface and the film shifts between seeing the trees as trees and seeing the movement of light and shadow abstracting the real environment. Your eye is taken all over the screen with this perpetual movement and change of light and colour. There is no single focal point – it is continuously changing. As with Redshift and Nocturne, light becomes the main protagonist. In Aspect fragments of unconscious forest sounds, ants in their anthill, the wind across the forest floor, the crack of a twig are reconfigured into an audio piece which articulates the film (and the forest) in an illusive and ambiguous way. Sound by Benedict Drew. (Emily Richardson)

SKAGAFJÖRDUR
Peter Hutton, USA, 2004, 16mm, colour, silent, 35 min
Peter Hutton’s films defy easy categorisation, eschewing narrative as well as the abstract formal vocabulary explored in much experimental filmmaking. Rather, his work is related to traditions of the 19th-century landscape painting and still photography. The films are silent and unfold in a series of tableaux separated by black leader, individual shots that are often completely still. The meticulously framed compositions of city views or landscapes are depicted in extended takes, inviting the spectator to take time to look closely. While sharing some formal characteristics of structural film, Hutton’s approach to the medium is more meditative. He states: “The experience of my films is a little like daydreaming. It’s about taking the time to just sit down and look at things, which I don’t think is a very Western preoccupation. A lot of influences on me when I was younger were more Eastern. They suggested a contemplative way of looking … where the more time you spend actually looking at things, the more they reveal themselves in ways you don’t expect.” Skagafjördur draws its title from a particularly striking region of northern Iceland. The film documents the area’s ravishing landscape in a series of serene vistas of rolling hills and open sky. After an introductory sequence in black and white, the film switches to luminous colour to capture the atmospheric play of light on the coastal valley. Hutton finds the mythic character of Iceland in its ancient physical landmarks, like the imposing Drangey Island, as well as in the brilliant, ephemeral moments slowly transforming the landscape. (Henriette Huldisch, Whitney Museum of American Art)

FLOWER
Yuiko Matsuyama, Japan, 2004, 16mm, colour, sound, 6 min
When you look the world of the same size as a pin through the lens of a camera, you see the spectacle of the light shaking greatly and the beautiful dynamic flow spread before the eye. By shooting this beautiful experience repeatedly, a layer of time and space was born. This work using the flow of China Ink is the fourth work of the series begun with Field in 2000. (Yuiko Matsuyama)

ZWERK
Bart Vegter, Netherlands, 2004, 35mm, colour, silent, 8 min
Zwerk is an abstract film that depicts an illusionary world. The film is made with the purpose to create an opportunity to view something as it is. What remains is a visual experience. When making the film I let myself inspire by the words “at the edge of emptiness” and by my interest in the field between chaos and order. Self-written software, light-frequencies and mesmerising abstractions. Silent images which shift between stagnation and continuous movement. (Bart Vegter)

ARKTIS – ZWISCHEN LICHT UND DUNKEL
Jürgen Reble, Germany, 2003, video, colour, sound, 32 min
This new video is a surprising departure for Reble, who is best known for his alchemical treatment of celluloid. Digitally processed, it transforms shots of the arctic landscape, drawn from education films and travelogues, into a virtual fantasy world illuminated by the hallucinatory half-light of evening.

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