FILMS
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ABOUT THE FILMS
3 Projector Video Installation, 2010
All the images are of people entering or leaving a dark space through a door from a light space or from outside. When all doors are shut the installation space is dark. The images are initially projected life size and work as a light source, when a door is seen to open light floods in. Sometimes the space is populated by the sound of the voices of people who have entered.
The real door into the space is in the same wall as the projected doors and people entering the space become part of the piece for those already watching. It works very well in a gallery where the tentative or boisterous characteristics and curiosity of those entering merges with the video action. Once in the space and understanding what is happening, viewers change from being the performers of their own entrance to watching the entrance of others in the context of the piece. When viewing the clip above you need to imagine that the doors are lifesize and that next to them is the real door with people entering to view the installation.
First presented at the Wirksworth Arts Festival, Derbyshire from 10th to 26th September 2010
Video, 5 mins, 2008
Sound by Gavin Huck
This film is inspired by the calm oasis at the centre of North Cross roundabout in Plymouth and the contrast between the activity of walking and the relative high speed chaos of traffic. It highlights the curious physical movements that are walking and celebrates the successful complete separation of pedestrians from vehicular traffic that the roundabout achieves. Made as part of the Cafe Concrete Plymouth City Project.
Screened at Weiterstadt Film Festival and at venues in the south west of England
Video, 10 mins, 2006
Piano Tim Jones
Shot during a workshop at the Laban Dance Centre in London, the film explores some of the visual opportunities offered by the architecture and participants without dwelling on formal dance movement. The ‘Framework’ section uses a 4×3 space frame to create a ‘camera space’ which plays against the architecture and movement of performers. In ‘Window’ performers are both illuminated and reflected as they move beside the translucent window. ‘Tour’ explores the building with a performer captured in the space frame and ‘Oof’ sees things out of focus.
Screened at Weiterstadt Film Festival and at venues in the south west of England
Video, 7 mins, 2004
Sound Hannah Standen
A tour of an old barn narrated by the farmer, Arnold Cole, who has known it for over 50 years. Redundant barn spaces and features serve to prompt the story of changes in farming practice. From milking by hand through the coming of electricity to developments in baling and feeding methods, the transformation from farming as a way of life to farming as agribusiness is charted.
Screened in the ‘Focus on Farmers’ touring exhibition at venues in the south west of England.
Video, 41 mins, 2004
Part intimate portrait and part observational documentary, this film looks at how a Dartmoor farming family relate to the land and their animals. Closely observed and beautifully captured over a period of 6 months in 2003, it gives a privileged insight into the world of farmers perceptions, their knowledge and skills accumulated over generations and their sensitivity to working with nature.
Screened in the ‘Focus on Farmers’ touring exhibition at venues in the south west of England.
with Sally Goode
Audiotape, 5 minutes, 2003
Sally Goode has been blind from birth. Tony Hill took her to a location unknown to her and recorded her describing what she found. By touch and sound she learns about the place and, with imagination, simplicity of expression and a joyful openness she articulates her findings. The sighted must see through her hands to experience this place. Objects, normally recognisable at a glance, become stranger and less identifiable when described by touch and without the vocabulary of vision.
‘A Sense of Place’ was originally produced for the Audible Picture Show, a programme of short audio
works curated by Matt Hulse and made for presentation in a darkened cinema.
35mm, 3 mins, 2001
Saxophone Jan Kopinski
An experiment with orientation movement and shape combined with musical improvisation. A continuous rolling, tumbling motion determined by a geometric shape creates a visual rhythm and images that roll, dip and soar with the improvised soundtrack.
Screened at many festivals and in touring programmes.
35mm, 16 mins, 2000
An experimental documentary which draws sounds and images from the Dartington Hall Estate and constructs an idiosyncratic portrait. Verbal and textual definitions attempt to pin down what it is and play against elusive images. Archive material and re-invented historical events evoke the ethos of the past and combine with stories and contemporary details to illuminate the spirit of the place.
Screened at many International Film Festivals and in touring programmes.
A live projected performance for camera crane and audience. The crane is set up at the front of the cinema with a camera connected back to the projector with a live feed. Viewers are both audience and subject as they watch themselves flying and rolling on the screen.
Presented at the Metro Cinema, Derby, Tate Britain and Plymouth Art Centre.
35mm, 25 mins, 1997
An experimental film that looks afresh at landscape by using the medium to explore its time and space in ways other than ‘eye view’. A rich, sensual, densely textured film poem that sets out to challenge perceptual habits without being drawn into the seductive trap of the picturesque.
Winner of the Silver Plaque for Experimental Film at Chicago Film Festival.
Broadcast by Channel Four in the UK. Screened at many international film festivals.
16mm, 1 min, 1993
A cinematic roller-coaster ride at the hands of a performer who is literally holding the viewer on the end of a pole. Swoop above his head on a rooftop then fall to his feet. Watch him strain to lift you up and swing you round. Balance precariously above his head as he hurries to get back before the magic wears off.
Winner of the Audience Prize, Chateauroux. Broadcast in France, Holland, Germany, Canada, Spain
and the UK. Screened at many film festivals and in touring programmes.
16mm, 1 min, 1992
An exercise in visual relativity in the form of a journey through space and time with the wheel. Starting with a primitive hand-drawn cart and moving through horsepower and machine age tractor and car to the ultimate wheeled transport, the bicycle.
Winner of the Deutscher Videokunstpreis 1993 & the Audience Prize at Chateauroux.
Broadcast in Germany, Finland, Holland, Australia, France, Spain and the UK. Screened at many festivals worldwide and in touring programmes.
16mm, 1 min, 1990
Big Ben strikes twelve while rotating around its own clockface as day turns into night. Twelve shots from twelve locations in one minute, the images fading with the bell chime at each strike.
Broadcast in the UK and France.
16mm, 12 mins, 1990
An experimental anamorphic film with optically squashed and squeezed images which raises some questions about the perception of shapes. From the longest cow to the shortest car, the film contains bizarre and sometimes hilarious images. It weaves a path between home, street and playground, finally meeting with its own musical ending.
Broadcast by Canal Plus in France. Screened at many International Film Festivals.
16mm, 11 mins, 1987
A sculptural film which explores the space on and just below the surface of a swimming pool. It plays with orientation, weightlessness and particularly the surface itself, that peculiar boundary between worlds that is both window and mirror, visible and invisible.
Best Experimental Film at Melbourne Film Festival. Screened at many International Film Festivals.
Broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK.
16mm, 17 mins, 1984
A film which, by the use of a simple camera movement, explores and reviews some relationships to the ground. The viewpoint continuously orbits places, objects, people and events. The observations gradually speed up to reveal a double sided ground flipping like a tossed coin, then slow again to oscillate about the earths edge.
Best Experimental Film at Melbourne Film Festival and Audience Prize at Hamburg Short Film Festival.
Screened at many other International Film Festivals. Broadcast on TV in Holland, Germany, France and by Channel 4 in the UK.
2 screen, 16mm, 15 mins, 1982
Sound by Steve Marshall
Film eyes open, blink and see, looking about with all-round vision. Shapes, lines and spaces are not constant but ebb and flow with the camera movement. This spherical view of things redefines geometry creating an almost four dimensional appearance which ultimately seems to turn space inside out.
Screened at the London Film-makers Co-op; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford;
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Arts -7, Rennes and the Festival of Franco British Cinema, Cherbourg.
16mm, 30 mins, 1975
This unique film is projected via a large, overhead mirror onto a screen which forms the floor of a small room. The audience can watch the film either by standing on the screen or by viewing through the mirror. Seen through the mirror the audience members in the room become part of the film. Those standing on the screen experience situations such as walking on water, the screen catching fire and other unusual events.
Exhibited at Tate Britain and the ICA in London, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and at many Art Galleries, Colleges and Schools throughout Britain.
Performance piece, 8 mins, First Performed 1973
A small bright light is the projector, several objects are the film and the whole room is the screen. A spatial exploration of the objects with the light projects them as big as the room encompassing the audience.
Performed at the ICA, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery and the National Film Theatre in London and at many European International Film Festivals.
Super 8mm, 8 mins, mute, 1972
Originally designed to be projected back up onto a screen on the glass floor on which it was made, this film uses people to explore the space beneath the floor. It was more recently screened as a ceiling film. Made while I was a Student at St Martin’s School of Art.
16mm, 1 minute version, 1971
A multiperson head, on the border between live action and animation, struggles to assert itself against the rapid succession of personal appearances. Made while I was a student at St Martin’s School of Art and featuring a lively collection of students from the time.