On Location with the workshop team in the Suteren
Underpass in Banja Luka, June 2009
So, the week workshop here in Banja Luka at
the Kratkofil Film Festival is finished and we're exporting
as you read. I spent the week improvising a mini-DV pseudo
'Dogme' film with a group of volunteers. We made use of the
local architecture and geography by creating 2 parallel storylines,
in present day and future Banja Luka.
The film alternates between colour and black
& white for present day and future, the future post-apocalyptic
as usual but for environmental reasons. The characters in
the film speak Serbian, subtitled in English, but the media
speaks English, subtitled in Serbian, and, in an unexpected
'feedback loop' characteristic of near future environmental
changes, the Balkans of 2032 have inner Arctic circle conditions.
Banja Luka is surrounded by glaciers.
The glacier on the Vrbas river is melting and
starts to release the debris it captured and preserved during
its rapid formation during 2012, thus releasing the preserved
body of Zoran 'Scooby' Prpa, who disappeared on the Vrbas
rapids 20 years previously. His daughter Neda, with friends
Belinda and Jovana, go to identify the body - Neda, at 21
years of age, faces her father, preserved at the same age.
'The Glacier' creates a bizarre and thought
provoking experience for the young Neda and her friends.
So, basically, we all made this film, with everybody
doing a bit of everything, and that's -
Me, Neda Segrt, Belinda Bozickovic, Jovana Doric, Zoran Prpa,
Andrej Birac, Sergej Slisko, Sara Corbic, Milan Dzaja, Dejan
Milinovic, Sinisa Stjepanovic
- and it runs at about 12 minutes.
Thanks to the Kratkofil Festival for producing
this project and thanks to Vladan Petkovic for suggesting
it in the first place.
Metal Dragon and Solus @ Clermont-Ferrand Short Film
Market, Feb 2nd to 6th 2009.
Metal Dragon Short Films and Music Videos, and the first
'Solus' Collection of International Avant-Garde shorts are
being presented this week at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film
Market in France, by Corona Cork Film Festival Director Mick
Hannigan.
"Clermont-Ferrand is the Cannes of short film, the single
most important market for short film, and also one of the
most prestigious short film festivals. It is attended by programmers
of the major short film festivals, by short film agencies,
by buyers and distributors. Cork has had a long association
with the Clermont-Ferrand festival since we assisted them
with the first major International retrospective of Irish
short films in 1996. In 2007 and 2008 we hosted the Irish
Short Film stand with some success."
Una Feeley, Cork Film Festival.
The first screening of 'Ouroboros', a film I've been making
bit by bit over the past 2 years, happened in Grace Space
Exhibition Centre in Brooklyn, N.Y on Thursday November 6th,
thanks to Jill and Moira;
Thanks again to everybody who contributed to the Ouroboros
soundtrack.
OUROBOROS: OCEAN DREAMS
'Ouroboros: Ocean Dreams' is a set of short improvised ghost
stories made on mini-DV with a variety of artists in a variety
of locations around the world, over the past year - from Bermuda
to Philadelphia to Yokohama to Trinidad and New York, with
composers, mural painters, stand up comics, animators and
conceptual artists. 'Ouroboros' is the feature film comprising
these short films when viewed end to end. The first short
introduces the composer, whose story ultimately carries and
connects the other stories. It is a film with a fragmented
protagonist which spans many characters and whose story spans
many locations.
The soundtrack includes contributions from the Ear Collective,
Jezebel Maraschalchi, Five Green Circle, Dave Donohoe, Stephen
Rennicks/Secret Society, Fergus Kelly, Dennis McNulty, Anthony
Kelly and David Stalling, Chequerboard, Coretta Singer, Eamonn
Doyle, Donnacha Costello and Metal Dragon.
NEW METAL DRAGON ALBUMS
'PTERANODON', first release on Metal Dragon
Music, is currently available on this website, in selected
shops, and will be launched in August.
SEE 'SOUNDS'
FOR MORE DETAILS, MORE FREE Mp3 DOWNLOADS, AND WHERE YOU CAN
BUY IT:
'ANAXAGORAS' and 'THE IRON MOUNTAIN' will be
the next releases on Metal Dragon Music.
SEE 'SOUNDS' FOR
MORE DETAILS AND FREE Mp3 DOWNLOADS:
D.E.A.F.
'D.E.A.F. Dublin Electronic Arts Festival', was an all Asian
festival last year and my contribution was not in the form
of visuals as in prevous years, but in the form of designing
and maintaining the website, my first real attempt at doing
so outside of my own sites.
This year I contributed to the film programme via our 'Solus
Collective'. Check the 'film' section of the site for further
details.
The Experimental Film Club recently started in The Ha'penny
Bridge Inn, last Sunday of every month. The club is run by
Aoife Desmond, Esperanza Collado, Donal Foreman and myself.
We show rare and classic experimental and avant-garde films
and discuss them in the relaxed pub environment.
This month we tried something experimental with a more mainstream
piece of work. We screened a live re-edit of 'Tron' as a silent
film, with an original improvised soundtrack by 3epkano, who
have played many silent film soundtracks.
Ken Perlin, special effects artist who worked
on the original film, was in Dublin for the Darklight Digital
Film Festival screening of Tron. He came along to the film
club after his talk and wrote about our screening experiment
in his blog; http://blog.kenperlin.com/?p=283
I performed a live visual mix for the opening night of 'IMAFY:
International Media Art Forum For Youth', at the Art Palace
on the banks of the Nile in Great Cairo, on April 6, by invitation
of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.
While taking part in IMAFY I was interviewed by 2 Arabian
Televison Stations. I am still waiting to find out if the
Egyptian council recorded these interviews, but apparently
they were seen throughout the Middle East. They were broadcast
on;
Channel Two:Egyptain Satelilite Channel.
6pm News: Monday April 7, 2008
And below is an Al Jazeera interview that I'm still trying
to get translated;
AL JAZEERA INTERVIEW ( Paragraph 3 )
LUXOR UNIVERSITY SCREENING
I presented a screening of 'Solus' Irish and international
film and animation in the Fine Art Faculty of South Valley
University, Luxor, Egypt, April 13 / 14. and held a Q+A about
animation and new media techniques and the their current state
in Ireland.
While in Egypt I was also invited to programme the Irish
and Northern European section of the 24th Alexandria International
Film Festival, to be held in August. Hopefully I will be atteding
and wll be able to present the Irish films.
SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE APPEAL
On May 25th there was a candlelght vigil held
in Smithfield for the victims of the Sichuan Earthquake. This
was attended by over 2,000 people. I did a live visual mix
for this event, co-ordinated by Chinese events organiser and
radio presenter Oliver Wang.
'Solus: Independent Film Collective' DVD Volume 1, was launched
in 'This Is Not A Shop' Gallery, Benburb Street, Dublin, on
February 19th. The launch was attended by legendary Avant-Garde
film-maker Jonas Mekas, who hosted the collective's first
screening in Anthology Film Archives in New York in 1999
In October 2007 I curated and presented a programme
of Irish animation for the Anmation and New Media Festival
in Trindad, via 'Solus'. The screening was held in the National
Museum in The Port Of Spain.
Camille Selvon Abrahams, Joan Vogelsang, Mohamed Ghazala,
Me, Will Bishop Stephens, Joan Asworth, Dotti Colvin, Olun
Riley, Coretta Singer and Roxanne Colthrust at the Animae
Caribe award ceremony.
There was a screening of an M.D. videomix in the ZEN Rooftop
Club - courtesy of Che Lovelace and 'The Amateurs', Trinidad
and Tobago DJ group - during Animae Caribe last October.
There was also an M.D. visuals mix for Murcof - at the Nieland
Gallery in Sligo in July last year, thanks to supporting act
Chequerboard. I worked with Feargal Nealon of 'I-Spy Visuals'
on this and he also helped with the M.D. visual mix for the
Asia Market's Gala evening in the RDS, last November. The
RDS evening featured international artists from China, India,
Brazil and Ireland. It was organised and presented by Oliver
Wang.
INDIAN DANCE BY TILLOTAMA NANDY AT THE RDS, November '07
Since 1995 Metal Dragon has been providing
a variety of creative services for independent film and music
productions - ranging from music videos for independent electronic
musicians, to slide and video installations for clubs, live
events and festivals.
M.D.'s visual and thematic material draws from a wide range
of sources, having worked in the graphic arts in China, Korea,
Japan, Australia, Siberia, North America, Canada, The Middle
East, The Caribbean and most of Europe. M.D. films and videos
generally allow the rich cultural mix and diversity of these
backgrounds to speak for themselves, with little stylization
except for simple colour enhancement and looping for more
minimal electronic work.
Between 2000 and 2003, based on the variety of footage gathered
( much of it from the Far East ), Metal Dragon developed a
futuristic thriller based on the traditional Chinese stories
of the Monkey King – The ‘White
Monkey’ Trilogy. Since developing these scripts
M.D. has returned to more experimental but narrative based
short digital films and has screened these works, in addition
to music videos, in festivals like Darklight, Digital Film
Festival, in Ireland, and Irish programmes in venues like
Anthology Film Archives in New York, and institutes like the
Contemporary Arts Centre in St.Petersburg.
In addition to film and video work, M.D.'s personal work
since 2003 culminates in 'The Seventh Earth' project, which
is a more conceptual ongoing website based project: http://www.theseventhearth.com
Metal Dragon Music is a new branch of M.D. activity which
will begin by releasing previously unreleased original film
soundtrack work produced by Metal Dragon throughout the 90’s.
The label will then act as a platform for future releases
of compilation soundtracks for experimental M.D. films
