A more recent development is the series
of animal films which, by the end of 2002, number about a dozen.
They came about, Sherwin writes: 'partly as a reaction to the
increasing dominance of the digital moving image. I felt that because it was now so easy to 'lie' with the
image, that there was no longer any certain link between image
source and the image itself; and that the filmic processes of
light and chemistry that register the image as a visible trace of
an event that was once in the world were now seriously
undermined. In the attempt to find a subject that was more
resilient to digital manipulation, that still felt alive and
untamed, I turned to animals, because of the subtlety of their
movements, and because they are evidently not acting'.
In one, a cat sleeping on a corrrugated plastic roof, was
filmed with a camera running at about one frame per second (as
opposed to the usual twenty four), so that each frame was a time
exposure of about half a second. The film was shot on very high
contrast film on a day of intermittent sunshine. When the sun is
out the cat can be seen breathing and moving periodically, but
when the sun goes in it is reduced to a black shape, and its
breathing becomes thus invisible, so that it appears as if the
shadow has struck it dead. At the end of the roll the cat
abruptly gets up and leaves the scene, its evident vigour
creating a sense of relief.
In a contrasting study of insects, several shots of gnats are
superimposed, creating layers which recede into whiteness. This
material is then refilmed in increasing close-up, so that we
become aware of groups of gnats clumping together, forming
extarordinary shapes which resemble silhouetted fragments of torn
paper that hang momentarily on the picture plane. These ephemeral
shapes parallel, and sometimes merge with the swirling grain
which is also greatly magnified.
As well as animals, the subject of the series includes some of
their habitats. One example is a close-up of a small area of a
lake, filmed very dark so that the water appears almost black,
broken only by ripples and the reflections of overhanging
branches. These branches periodically dip down towards the
surface and as they do so their reflections appear to rise up out
of the water to meet them. Unlike most of the other films in the
series this one has been made without any image manipulation: The
camera is simply pointed at its subject. The film is thus a
testimony to the acts of acute observation that underlie all the
films in the series. Sherwin sees not only what is there, but is
also able to make the visible connections between a particular
scene and the various ways in which it can be transformed by film
technology without denying its original and specific nature.
Sherwin's work occupies a special place in experimental film
culture for its precise balance between an observational
attitude, in which the camera is invariably directed at existing
things in the World, and the way in which camera technology and
printing procedures enhance and highlight the unique features of
those things he is filming.
Nicky
Hamlyn is a filmmaker and writer
Nicky Hamlyn is a filmmaker and writer.
