Videos from the archive part three 'ISS_V01'

Another narrative piece made before I found a working set of constraints, the video demonstrates the careless use of excessive engine power close to human habitation, a theme I returned to recently in Ghost_Ship_Ghost_City

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct7mgMGxT1A&t=1s

Remix Abstract Surrealism part 01

It looks like the bare bones of a new film are at least in sight, the working title is ‘Remix’ and my intention is document all (or some of the production process), whilst I now know the source material, the final outcome is unknown, where it will go and what steps the journey may involve may be of interest. This is a very personal project and involves my father who is something of a polymath (lots of poly…not so much math). Colin Spencer has been successful in a number of fields during his working life, a painter, a playwright, a novelist, a journalist (who hasn’t been one of these at some stage?) and historian. As he reaches the end of his allotted time on earth, he has returned to his first love painting with a vengeance. I love my father dearly and he has been a huge influence on me, we always enjoy discussing his work and I have often made contributions on how he could develop his work further. His style at the end of his life has changed to Abstract Surrealism where, he claims, he has found himself. I have often joked (not actually joking) that when he dies, I shall repaint many of the recent works and take then where they should be, he opens well, but not what you’d call ‘a completer, finisher’ . At a recent dinner party one of his friends remarked that of course I meant ‘digitally’, actually I didn’t, but now that my fame as a video artist has spread as far as my aunt in the South of France, I thought ‘why the hell not’, so I have grabbed six photos of my dads most recent work (all constantly square, well done Dad) and this will form the basis of the next project.

One Minute Volume 9

A collection of short films called One Minute Volume 9 as curated by Kerry Baldry is now online.

Here is the link https://www.salto.nl/programma/the-screening-room/

The collection was also shown on Salto TV on the 120719. Salto TV  is a TV network on Amsterdam region on cable with 1.5 million people connected on their TV (normally channel 14), so anybody living in the vicinity with a TV can watch it and it is in local hotels. My film One Minute Walk is a part of One Minute Volume 9

A longer version at 02:08 can be found here

https://vimeo.com/155732025

Videos from the archive part two 'Return to Europa'

Another narrative from the Moons of the Solar System series channelling my inner 'dieselpunk' and using something very close to a Herge rocket, see it here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSrHHaV4vrk 

Videos from the archive part one 'Thebe'

Before I started working with Processing as a primary creative tool I made some 3D videos. Here is one from 2010 demonstrating an unhealthy obsession with Yamaha speakers and monochrome. The plan at the time was to make a piece of sound for every moon in the solar system, however the bounty of celestial objects around the sun soon outstripped my creativity. One to comeback to eventually.

Video here 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Cux9pJlMI

Why is this here?

The purpose of this blog is to provide a context to my video work, this could include pre-production stills details of process, snippets of code and the thinking behind pieces as well as links to other artists and musicians who influence me. It will be a living breathing document of the projects but will be subject to revision and deletion, at least until I lose interest in it, a bit of a bowdlerised scrapbook. I will also post links to past projects from time to time.

Maps of Flatter Worlds

My video work is an attempt to make animated paintings with audio, which fits within the cannon of abstraction. Hence the revisiting of a painted image and the push to resolve the impasto of the original with a halftone version, which is subsequently recycled as a 3D deformation map. So a third surface is created, which is related but detached from the original source material. The audio uses a generative synth patch inspired by Thomas Hammer (Waveformer) check YouTube for more on him.

See the video here https://vimeo.com/343170784