Huit femmes

Across the Hall When the Greens move into a new apartment, Mrs. Green is concerned that Mr. Green is a bit too interested in the comely Mrs. Smith living in the apartment across the hall. Returning home drunk later that evening, Mr. Green accidently enters the Smiths’ apartment, setting off a humorous chain of events.

Beware of Married Men A press sheet printed in Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World in 1928 put forth the suggestion that “people in the need of a good hearty laugh should take this opportunity of getting it” by seeing a newly released comedy by Warner Bros., suggestively entitled Beware of Married Men. Since director Archie Mayo (The Petrified Forest) helmed this feature during the dying days of the silent era, the studio sought to enhance its commercial viability by embellishing the shot-silent picture with a synchronized music and effects soundtrack using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. Ultimately, these efforts went for naught, as the picture failed at the box office and quickly disappeared from theaters.

The Frame-Up on Dad A father's plan to arrange a marriage for his son goes awry when the son marries another woman, then brings her back to meet the family disguised as a man. What could go wrong?

Brotherhood of Man In this moving drama, a young man discovers his old athletic instructor panhandling on the street, and becomes determined to find a way to earn the money necessary to secure the older man's survival.

Absinthe In October 2009 I did a show in Prague. I returned to the Kafka house of my ‘Benefit of Mr K’ but found the whole street and Castle area had become a tourist trap – so I wandered into the back-streets at the bottom of the hill and found a little local bar for a plate of sausage, mustard and strong brown bread. Intending to drink some wine I noticed that Absinthe was included in the drinks list so ordered it. I admitted to the bar-keeper that I had never had it before and he showed me how it should be mixed and flamed with sugar – and I recorded with my pocket video camera. With a little gesture to Picasso and Degas, I became the Absinthe Drinker.

Finiti [Originally] six virtual screens matted into three Blu-ray projections. First exhibited at the Centre Multimedia Gantner in 2011, then on an immersive 18 metre curved screen at Tate Britain in 2012. It explores an interplay between abstracted colour, personal imagery and war related newsreel, seeking a coherent set of linking themes. Perhaps an homage to Dziga Vertov. A single screen version was made in 2013 and shown in Millennium, New York and at Tate Britain.

H2O-0C-24.02.06-12.01GMT... A simple event becomes rhythmically complex through changes of speed and multiple superimposition. The title refers to the inevitable inclusion of detailed meta-data in all future digital recordings – locating for example global time, place, temperature for example.

Self Portrait After Raba... Self Portrait looks for an approach to a specific relationship between the duration of a work and material conditions in the projection as did William Raban in the film-performance Take Measure. The main difference is that Raban’s work was made when cinematic media had distinct physical properties linking medium directly to image - this self portrait recognizes that there is no such simple materiality for cinema following the emergence of digital processes. Instead the work takes a conceptual base – the speed of light and the time taken for light to travel from the sun to illuminate objects on earth –thus the duration of 8 minutes 20 seconds.

Digital Still Life A single performance made at the National Film Theatre against a blank screen – the performer twice leaves the stage on one side, exits the building and re-enters the stage on the other side – the duration was determined by the time it took to walk out of sight around the theatre.

Ben Harper & The Innocen... Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals recorded live at the XM Studios in Washington, DC on June 19, 2007.