Category Archives: light

Anastasya Koshkin – Reliving and All Falling

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Reliving and All Falling (2012, 206 MB, 4:42 min)

Lyric moving image poetry that keeps on giving, in proportion to time
spent with. I particularly admire the carefully structured and evocative
soundtrack – there’s a moment towards the end where a deep rumble starts
to suggest the rhythm of the waves we have been watching but never quite
completely coheres and this specific ambiguity typifies the richness of
the use of sound in general.
Visually, the angled image makes us more carefully examine and really see,
drink in, the casual beauties – in delicious high contrast B&W – placed before us.
Lovely.

Anastasya Koshkin on Vimeo

Nicki Rolls – Dream Home & Don’t Know Y

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Dream Home (2012, 61MB, 1:00 min)


Don’t Know Y (2010, 116MB, 2:23 min)

I first encountered Nikki Rolls’ work through Kerry Baldry’s splendid One Minutes series.( In fact we featured another piece by her in our very first post about that series)

As with so many of the artists included in that series she’s an amply justified curatorial choice;
her work is subtle, thought provoking and very beautiful.
She makes tiny ( or sometimes none, except to select) interventions into found (sometimes “found from herself”) images or footage which have a transformative effect and an expressive force much greater than one might have any right to predict. Beautiful.

Constellation – Covent Garden Winter Lights

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Constellation (2008, 17MB, 3 min.)

“Commissioned by Covent Garden, United Visual Artists lit up the market
halls of Covent Garden with a responsive light installation. Launched as
the flagship piece of the winter season program at Covent Garden the
installation featured 600 custom-designed mirrored LED tubes hanging
above the entire Covent Garden market space.


The volumetric arrangement of the tubes created a canvas in which three
dimensional light formations were made possible. Constellation was also
individually controllable using a custom-designed control panel, giving the
installation an intimate connection with the public.”

United Visual Artists are a British-based collective whose current practice spans permanent architectural installation, live performance and responsive installation.

Dan Osborne – Behold the Light (at Night)

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Behold the Light (at Night) (2008, 87MB, 6:27 min)

We initially posted this in 2008 when we encountered Dan Osborne’s work
for the first time.
Recently he seems to be actively rejecting some of his earlier work so I hope
he doesn’t mind us reposting this. In my view he’s a very talented artist
with a quite singular vision.
We said then:

There’s something pleasantly reminiscent of Linklater’s Slacker
in this piece from Dan Osborne.
I don’t mean to suggest it’s derivative; I don’t think it is, or only
in the completely unescapable way of coming-after. This piece
has it’s own identity, which at first I wasn’t sure whether it was
completely random, but then little bits of structuring begin to
assert themselves. In particular I like the fades which occur
immediately prior to anything substantive happening.
A lot of it looks very good too – there’s no doubt the man
has an eye – the 3-D glasses sequence, the fire women,
the musical instruments procession (although am I alone in
finding something slighty snotty about the shot of the bemused onlookers?).
That little cavil aside this is interesting stuff & I look forward to seeing
how Osborne’s work develops.

Tony Arnold – Foundation

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Foundation(2011, 153MB, 14:01 min)

Here’s a striking and very beautiful piece of work from
Mississippi based artist Tony Arnold.
There is clear evidence of his discovery and love affair
with the greats of the American experimental film tradition but
he’s obviously gifted and visionary and very much his own
person. (I love his choice of music, sounds a bit like Ornette
Coleman but I think it’s not…wonderful, anyway)
This is evidenced by his website* too –
with exhilaratingly edgy and engaging work, full of ideas –
I particularly like his altered fashion ads series.
Interesting, very interesting, to see how this work develops.

*I am uncomfortable, however, with the dangerously
naive & abstentionist defence of hate-speech there – well,
more than uncomfortable:- it’s stupid & wrong headed –
tell the family of the next racist murder victim that the
language that convicted and sentenced them was just a “series of grunts”.
I’m assuming though it comes from young artist hunger &
restlessness & in-your-faceness and nothing worse.

Patrick Power – lights and darkness

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Steamlight (2006, 16.2MB, 2:51)


Watauga (2007, 203.1MB, 26:23)

Two extraordinary pieces from Patrick Power.
Its as if the Qatsi trilogy found a way to use a videoblog as a testing ground.
This is much more than a test, though.
Some of the most important work I have seen in a while.
Beautifully touching randomized archives.
Pushing the limits of contemplative observation.
Taking time to visually visit other places.
There is so much beauty in reflections and the synchronicities of our minds.

Sample these two, then go visit the rest of his collection. Patrick makes the world watchable.

Edit: Sadly, Patrick Power passed away in 2007. This post was created to honor this man’s work, and now sadly, we must honor that work as his legacy.

Big Moth

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Big Moth (2011, 9MB, 3:05 min)

“Experimental film and sound collage with a spoken poem
about embodying a moth”
As you do, as you do…
Another piece of strange & haunting loveliness from Simon Mclennan*.

*I completely screwed up posting this last week – I prepared the post &
went on vacation for a few days forgetting to actually upload the only
copy of the movie we had, on my home machine, to the server. Arrgh!
Big apologies to Simon & here it is all working properly now.

Park House

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Park House (2011, 10MB, 1:55 min)

Poetry, visual and aural, from Simon Mclennan.
(And what a compelling speaking voice he has.
How nice to have such a fine instrument)
Quite, quite lovely.
More soon.

Regina Célia Pinto –Andante Grazioso

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Andante Grazioso (2011, 26MB, 3:47 min)

Gosto muito do trabalho de Regina Pinto, simples e elegante
na superfície, ele toca o coração (e acopla a mente) e,
aparentemente, é isso que nos prende.
Esta profundidade lúcida, a embalagem luminosa do diário,
não é conseguida sem trabalho, mas Regina é demasiado
cuidadosa e modesta (no comportamento, não na ambição)
mas, visivelmente, está fazendo algo difícil, e este fato é,
ele próprio, parte de sua arte. Encantador!

Like so much of Regina Célia Pinto’s work, simple and elegant
on the surface, this touches the heart (and engages the mind)
seemingly without effort.
Of course ‘seemingly’ is the catch. This lucid depth, the luminous
encapsulation of the everyday, is not achieved without labour,
but Regina is too careful and modest (in demeanour, not ambition) an
artist to make heavy weather of it, and this fact is itself part of her art.
Lovely!

Ruth Catlow – Landscape

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Landscape (2011, 114MB, 3:12 min)

Ravishing piece of work from my friend and colleague Ruth Catlow
who is also co-director of the indispensible Furtherfield.org

We’ve been talking a lot amongst ourselves and with our students about
continuities across art history and about hybrid techniques which
meld both the ancient and the newest.
Filmed in the New Forest, this piece (apart from its great beauty)
is an exemplar of this approach and pathbreaking in its way.
(More so than much which, dull-eyed, shouts and waves the latest thing
from the rooftops.)
The oldest kind of mark making, delicately but robustly realised,
captured on a tiny portable video camera in a semi-performative
way and then networked…
Beautiful and nourishing both.

Iban M. Selles – De Noche

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De Noche (2010, 71MB, 3:09 min)

I like the boldness of this, constructed by Iban M. Selles entirely
(and deftly) from stills taken on the set of , as I understand it,
a different film on which Iban Selles was working.
The sound, collaged from a number of movie soundtracks, is tremendous.
The piece as a whole has a slightly provisional feel to it -a study rather
than something definitive -but dull it’s not and I look forward to seeing
more work by Selles.

Eleanor Suess films Christopher McHugh

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Painting 01 (1998-2001, 58MB, 2:51 min)

More from Eleanor Suess, this time an exploration of a painting
by UK artist Christopher McHugh.
She get’s the usual basics of this sort of thing – fidelity to McHugh’s wonderful colour
sense in particular – spot on, but, as I’m beginning to realise with all of Suess’s
work, there’s a good deal more to it than initially meets the eye.
(Which expression strikes a philosophical note when applied to two
predominantly visual practices)
It’s the modesty (in the best sense) of the that work does it.
The work refuses either to ingratiate or ambush.
We could do with more of this.

Joy Garnett’s Unmonumental Videos

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Found Art (Nolita) Unmonumental 484
Found Art (Nolita) Unmonumental 484 (2011, 36 MB, 26 secs)

Found Art (Chelsea) Unmonumental 507
Found Art (Chelsea) Unmonumental 507 (2011, 32 MB, 23 secs)

Joy Garnett is not only a fascinating and accomplished painter but
she takes a neat photo too.
There’s a huge set of images on her Flickr pages entitled
Unmonumental – a recording and honouring of the melancholy beauty
of the neglected, ephemeral, the broken and the passing.
Recently she’s added videos to the collection and here’re two
of them.
They are utterly beguiling and we’re going to show the whole
lot over the next weeks and months.

KMA – ‘Flock’ in Liverpool

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‘Flock’ in Liverpool (2008, 152MB, 2:44 min)

How many times do you read artists’ descriptions of their own work
and think ‘naaaaa…’ totally failing to recognise their stated ambitions
in what appears to you to be, at best, somewhat pedestrian and at
worst, a total disconnect from what they write.
This is the complete opposite of that, utterly living up to the makers’
stated intentions, and an absolute spine tingler to watch even through
the distance of video documentation.
Check out the KMA site for a complete description of the piece,
an ‘interactive light installation’ based around Swan Lake,
but not until you’ve watched this beautiful bit of documentary.
Particularly touching is the genuine joy in participation it evokes.

Very hard to pull off and very moving to see.

Array – United Visual Artists

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Array (2008, 13MB, 2 min.)

“Array is a field of columns set in the courtyard of the Chuya Nakahara
Memorial Museum in Southern Japan. The columns create a field of
light and sound which gently shifts in response to the viewers

Nuit blanches 2010 Metz, France with DIEZ and paradigme

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Nuit blanches 2010 – DIEZ and paradigme (2010, 41 MB, 1:55 min.)

Collaboration of Video mapping, light and sound installation, done for
Nuit blanches 2010 Metz.
Audio Visual design by paradigme.
Scenography and video mapping by DIEZ.

Studio Banana TV Interviews Pablo Valbuena

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Interview with Pablo Valbuena (2009, 43 MB, 3:46 min)

Studio Banana TV interviews visual artist and architect Pablo Valbuena.
After working in digital media designing virtual architectures for videogames,
he currently looks for new ways of using light to introduce the dimensions of
time and movement in urban spaces, altering the perception of physical space
through projected virtual realities.

One Minute, Volume 4

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Dinosaur
Martin Pickles – Dinosaur  (2010, 130 MB, 1:01 min)

1961 Revisited.
Nicki Rolls – 1961 Revisited  (2010, 114 MB, 58 secs)

Two pieces from a touring screening of one minute films,
the fourth such from British filmmaker Kerry Baldry.

It’s a really well put together and gripping hour
(transparency dictates I confess I have a piece in it
but I won’t foist that on you here), with a strike rate well above
most of this kind of compilatation.

Here are two of my favourite pieces; both, in different
ways, little gems of cinematic poetry.
Although Martin Pickle’s piece is amusing there’s
something enchanting about the changing seasonal
landscape & light of West London and how it manifests on screen,
which raises the work from anecdote to something more complicated
and lasting.

The Nicki Rolls piece had me in the palm of its hand within about a second.
(I’m a total sucker for near stillness and for the movement of light)
Then I started to think about what exactly I was watching.
You might like to give it some thought too.
Again, the twist breaks the confines of the one minute form
to resonate long after.

I haven’t see the other three compilations but I hope we could maybe
feature a couple of pieces from each in the not too distant future.

Next week we’ll have a piece by Kerry herself.

Victor Robledo – Diarios de Luz

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DiarioDeLuz #15
Diario de Luz #15 (2006, 5.5MB, 1:48 min)

DiarioDeLuz #3
Diario de Luz #3 (2006, 5.3MB, 3:35 min)

Colombian artist & photographer Victor Robledo made a series
of these pieces in 2006 & posted them on a blog entirely given over to them .
Active since the mid Seventies, Robledo says
“The theme of my work has always been

Two tiny Sporkworld loops

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A Small Spork Lumiere (2009, 3MB, 9 sec silent loop)


Fireworks (2009, 2MB, 43 sec silent loop)

Two from the ever reliable, delightful, and in its quiet & unassuming
(but frequently deadly – it’s the Columbo of art blogs) way, mould-breaking
Sporkworld Microblog, which if you don’t follow religiously, you should.
Ironically, given the setting, A Small Spork Lumiere could constitute a kind
of ostensive definition of dryness.

Light Attack – Studio Daniel Sauter

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Light Attack (2004, 17MB, 4:55 min.)

Light Attack

‘uses a custom mobile projection setup installed in a car
to project an animated virtual character onto the cityscape.
Short pre-recorded video loops are arranged into seamless motion
patterns by the computer software, allowing interaction with the
architecture and passers-by in real-time.’

More from Studio Daniel Sauter.

Daquar at the Nordic Light Hotel

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Daquar at the Nordic Light Hotel (2008, 40MB, 3:38)

Excerpt from short film made for the Nordic Light Hotel,
from Swedish art and design company Daquar.

Homographies by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

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Homographies (2006, 33MB, 8 min.)

HOMOGRAPHIES is an interactive installation featuring 144 robotic fluorescent
light fixtures controlled by 7 computerized surveillance systems. As people
walk under the piece, the light tubes rotate to create labyrinthine patterns of
light that are

Millie Niss – Commercial Spots

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Commercial Spots (2006, 8.4MB)

Archive sutff from the Sporkworld stable, this time from Millie Niss & it has
all the hallmarks that make Sporkworld work such an unalloyed pleasure.
Manifestly bullshit free, apparently straightforward but with onion like layers,
this one wonderfully highlights Niss

Under Scan by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

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Under Scan (2005, 31MB, 9:51 min.)

“Under Scan” is a public art installation based on self-representation.
Thousands of “video-portraits” taken in Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, Northampton
and Nottingham are projected onto the ground; at first, the portraits are not
visible because the space is flooded by white light coming from a high-powered
projector. As people walk around the area, their shadows are cast on the ground,
revealing the video-portraits in short sequences.
By Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.