FOUND CINEMA

(DV CAM, 2003-6, 3'10")

Found Cinema is a video film in which evening sunlight projects the shadows of passers-by onto a concrete wall, turning them momentarily into actors on an natural cinema screen.

It is a single-take recording of a phenomenon I discovered under a foot-bridge on Belvedere Road near the National Film Theatre in London. I had found a naturally occurring cinema: between the hours of 7.30 and 8.30pm the sun was low enough in the sky to project the shadows of passers-by on the footbridge right the way across a main road onto my 'cinema screen.'

In this way the shadows acted as found footage: projected images in their own right. What makes these shadows so arresting is that they walk upright: one expects shadows to lie on the ground.

The film is a 45 second video-clip looped with an invisible wipe to make a three-minute film. This invisible loop makes the viewer start to question whether the passers-by, cars and buses are genuine or in fact carefully choreographed. I shot the film in 'portrait' rather than 'landscape' format as it reminded me of the city paintings of Giorgio De Chirico and the earlier versions of the film were titled De Chirico.

I have also made a continuously-looping version for gallery exhibition.

You can see a special one-minute version of Found Cinema by clicking here

SCREENINGS

May 5-Jun 5 2004: the 2004 version, also entitled De Chirico, was shown on outdoor plasma screens as part of outvideo video art festival in Ekaterinburg, Russia

26th February 2004: both versions were also screened at my private screening at the Candid Arts Trust in Camden, North London.