Film Categories: art & artists

  • Secondary Currents

    A film about the relationships between the mind and language. Delivered by an improbable narrator who speaks an extended assortment of nonsense, it is an “imageless” film in which the shifting relationships between voice-over commentary and sub-titled narration constitute a peculiar duet for voice, thought, speech and sound. A kind of comic opera, the film is a dark metaphor for the order and entropy of language. “Secondary Currents” is the subject of a number of articles on the use of language in the arts.

  • See You Later / Au Revoir

    “The action depicted here is simplicity itself; a man (Snow himself) rises from his desk, puts on his coat, says goodbye to a woman typing at a nearby desk, and leaves the room. But what took a mere 30 seconds in ‘real’ time had been recorded with a Super Slo-Mo video camera (developed for sports broadcasting) and further processed before the final transfer to film, being expanded to a full 18 minutes. With the continuous right-to-left pan in smooth and constant motion, taken from a fixed tripod position, the whole image- with arriving and departing frame details- is fully equal…

  • Seeing in the Rain

    Photographed through the windshield of a Vancouver city bus and edited according to the rhythms of the bus’ windshield wiper, the film transforms the linear “narrative” of the bus ride into a temporal construction that can be described as cubist. The effect of the cutting strategy on the actual temporal organization of the film is as remarkable as its effect on our sense of time. (R. Bruce Elder – Image and Identity) “[Gallagher’s] film embodies the essence of cinema; movement, rhythm and the poignance of ephemeral gestures.” – J. Hoerman

  • Sexual Meditation: Room with a View

    Directly in the tradition of “Sexual Meditation No. 1: Motel…” this “sequel” does explore further the possibilities of nudes in a room… (SB)

  • She Is Away

    The film’s projected time is the basic material of this film and is wrought into a simple form which, by its radically reductionist structure, transforms the material of the dramatic form into a tone poem of waiting and anticipation. (RBE)

  • Sheep

    A man counting sheep as he sleeps. I have never seen sheep as I sleep. The sheep relax the man, he falls into a deep sleep. You are wide awake, moving through the man, maybe sleeping counting sheep. The alchemy, the dream, the scene. (CB)

  • Shiteater

    “A five star gross-out, ‘Shiteater’ features a body in revolt… Andrew Wilson gives a tour de farce performance as the shiteater and Hoolboom’s camera work is never less than sublime.” – Gina Hampton, Herald

  • Side Seat Paintings Slides Sound Film

    In 1970 I had a large retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. For this exhibition I composed/designed a largely photographic book called “A Survey.” This was the first of several works, which attempted to use previous work or the records of previous work as the material for new work. Starting with “raw” material that has already been formed by oneself on some other occasions for some other purposes is a very interesting thing. “Side Seat…” is a 20-minute sound film made in 1970 of the projecting and verbal (my voice) identification of slides (made at various…

  • simulacrum

    “Simulacrum” attempts to fashion the experience of absorbing plastic art through a time-based medium. Rather than voice-over documentary commentary, this short video authors an “Applebroogesque” environment. As in Applebroog’s constructs, surface indications wash over tensions that glue people to situations and each other. In “Simulacrum”, a family portrait becomes unhinged. Carefully tended family “secrets” get a night out on the town and the waiter gets more than the orders. Finally, the daughter’s embarrassment fractures into visions of Applebroog paintings, until her thoughts marry the artwork in a batle of imagery and emotions.

  • Skein

    A loosely coiled length of yarn (story)… wound on a reel – my parenthesis! This is a painted film (inspired by Nolde’s “unpainted pictures”): “skins” of paint hung in a weave of light. (SB)