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 INFORMER checks in with veteran UK experimental film artist GUY SHERWIN, currently touring on behalf of OtherFilm and BIFF.
Your Cinema Of Performance/Cinema Of Perception visit to Brisbane is co-presented by the Brisbane International Film Festival – do you believe mainstream film festivals should allow more space in their programs for avant-garde or experimental work?
Yes more space, it’s always good for these two worlds to be reminded of the other’s existence.
Can you tell us a little about the ‘expanded cinema’ pieces you will be presenting?
I’m showing a range of work, from a six-projector collaboration with Lynn Loo, Vowels & Consonants, which is about the image and sound of letterforms, to a performance in which I interact with the image of myself as a young man, Man With Mirror.
In a program like this, which presents many examples from across your career, do you sometimes find yourself critically re-appraising your early works?
I can still learn from them, if I work hard at it. It’s easy to think you know what you’ve made. Sometimes I look at films I made in the ‘70s and try to re-think them within a gallery or other space or as some kind of digital output.
What is about the nature and appeal of celluloid film that sets it fundamentally apart from digital media, taking into the account the constant improvements in digital quality over the past decade?
You can hold it in your hand and look at it. It feels more solid and attached to the world it portrays. Because it’s not codified it responds to physical processes in ways one can understand.
What sorts of reactions or sensations do you hope your films will elicit from an audience?
An awareness of film as having possibilities of a kind of visual logic as well as a sensuousness and power very different from when it’s used to carry a story, or impart information.
After 30 years of filmmaking, what sustains your drive to explore cinema?
The excitement to see how the next project will look.
GUY SHERWIN visits Brisbane with Lynn Loo this month, screening works at GoMA as part of BIFF (6pm, Aug 6); followed by a Lunchbox Lecture at QCA (12.30pm, Aug 7); and an Expanded Cinema Performance at Expressions Space, Judith Wright Centre, also as part of BIFF (6pm, Aug 9). Visit www.otherfilm.org and www.biff.com.au for more details.
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