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.
I have also made a one-minute version for Kerry Baldry's One Minute Volume 1 screening programme.
SCREENINGS OF ONE-MINUTE VERSION:
This was incoporated - along with my other film Knight- into Kerry Baldry's One Minute Volume 1 programme of artists' films and videos and has been screened with them at the following events and film festivals:
Hornsey Town Hall, Crouch End Broadway, London N8 on Sat and Sun May 17 2008, 18 between 11am - 6pm.
The Hull International Film Festival on Wednesday 16th April 2008 at Reel Cinemas from 6-7pm
The Directors Lounge, Friedrich Str. 112A, Berlin Mitte, Germany on Saturday 16th February 2008 at 8 pm.
The Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6JA Tuesday 16 October 2007 at 8pm
NIGHT OF OUTVIDEO event in cinema SALUTE [Yekaterinburg] Russia, on August 4, 2007
Cog Collective, CANDID ARTS TRUST, 3 Torrens Street, Angel Islington, N1, Sunday 3rd June 2007, 4pm
SCREENINGS OF FULL-LENGTH VERSION:
June 2007: shown on a loop at the Salon 07 exhibition at the Seven-Seven gallery, Hackney
23rd June 2007: the 60 second version was screened in the One Minute film programme curated by Kerry Baldry at Cog Collective at the Candid Arts Trust
April 2006: screened on a loop at the Man Group Drawing Prize exhibition at the Royal College of Art, London
26th February 2004: both versions were also screened at my private screening at the Candid Arts Trust in Camden, North London.
14th Sep 2003-11th Jan 2004: the 2002 version of the film, entitled De Chirico, was screened as part of an exhibition of Metaphysical Art at the Kunst Meran I Merano Arte, Italy
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
