Quote:
A response to my young daughter’s discovery of language and to her questions about the world.

Messages was made over a 3 year period, when my daughter Maya was first learning to talk and write.

It was my first film that involved gathering material around a central theme. That theme was not constant, but shifted its ground between ideas to do with childhood, with language, or with visual perception.

A major source of inspiration for the film was Maya’s questions about the world, starting with questions to do with her perceptions of the physical world, and as she got older, questions more to do with social behaviour. These ‘innocent’ questions (apart from being almost impossible to answer) seemed to me to be of a philosophical order that challenged long-established ‘truths’ about the world. They made it clear to me that ‘knowledge’ which is hidden and acquired, supplants raw perception in many areas of our understanding (we learn to ‘see’ the table as square, not trapezoid).

I also included material from Jean Piaget’s book of 1929 ‘The Child’s Conception of the World’, in which he asks a number of children questions about the origin of the stars, sun, moon. I wanted to include an external source of ideas to give myself a measure of distance from the project, and to place the emphasis on childhood in general rather than my daughter’s childhood in particular.

The pace of the film is slow, and the structure of the film is open-ended. The images progress through oblique association rather than linear sequence, allowing the viewer to make his or her own connections with different points in the film, as well as drawing on personal childhood associations (two aspects of memory are involved here). The implication is that each person will ‘see’ the film differently and uniquely. I first used an open structure like this in ‘Short Film Series’, a group of 30 3-minute films which can be programmed in any number and permutation. The idea of the viewer ‘doing work’ (not necessarily unpleasant work) on the film is an important tenet of a progressive film practice.

Guy Sherwin (1981-3) Messages.mkv

General
Container: Matroska
Runtime: 33mn
Size: 516 MiB
DXVA: Compatible
Minimum settings: Met
Video
Codec: x264
Resolution: 716x572 ~> 762x572
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Frame rate: 25.000 fps
Bit rate: 2 146 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/ECBBD4C7CA2A3EE/Guy_Sherwin_(1981-3)_Messages.mkv

https://fikper.com/eK8s26z0f3/Guy_Sherwin_(1981-3)_Messages.mkv

Language(s):None
Subtitles:None

The post Guy Sherwin – Messages (1984) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Guy Sherwin studied painting at Chelsea School of Art in the late 1960s before being drawn to the radical film practice of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative (now LUX) where he taught printing and processing during the mid-’70s. His films investigate fundamental qualities of cinema such as light and time, and often use serial forms or live elements to extend its possibilities. The unique, elusive qualities of analogue film are explored through experiments with sound, image and film in live performance.

Recent works, made in collaboration with artist Lynn Loo, include performances of Live Cinema utilising multiple projectors and optical sound (sounds made from light) in conjunction with improvised music. These have toured to Europe, USA, Asia, and Australia and have often involved collaborations with musicians. See Notes on the Film Performances.

Sherwin’s films for single screen have been included in major surveys of artists’ film: ‘Film as Film’ Hayward Gallery 1979, ‘Live in Your Head’ Whitechapel Gallery 2000, Shoot Shoot Shoot Tate Modern 2002, ‘A Century of Artists’ Film & Video’ Tate Britain 2003/4; also shown on BBC2, Channel 4 and Arte TV France. Recent performances include Performa Biennale, New York 2013; Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Seoul South Korea 2014; ICA London 2014, Latitude Festival Suffolk 2014. His films are in the collections of Tate Gallery, Cinematheque Francaise, BFI London, British Council, National Library of Australia, LightCone Paris, Canyon Cinema San Francisco and the British Artists’ Film & Video Study Collection. EYE Institute Amsterdam holds many of the 16mm archive masters.

Founded in 1966, the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative started life at Better Books, a counter-culture bookshop on Charing Cross Road, where a group led by poet Bob Cobbing and filmmakers Stephen Dwoskin and Jeff Keen met to screen films. Initially inspired by the activities of the New American Cinema Group in New York, the London Co-op grew into a pioneering organisation that incorporated a film workshop, cinema space and distribution office. During its four-decade history, the Co-op played a crucial role in establishing film as an art form in the UK and participated in a vibrant international film scene. This BFI Player collection brings together new scans of films distributed by and/or produced at the London Co-op.

https://nitro.download/view/8F4C097EF5243A4/Guy.Sherwin.-.Collected.HD.Works.1972-1986.720p.BFI.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-Cinefeel.rar

Language(s):None
Subtitles:None

The post Guy Sherwin – At the Academy / Cycles / Salt Water (1974) first appeared on Cinema of the World.