TDTKs October 2012

 October  28th

SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN

The power of the sun exceeds what both the human eye and the artificial eye of the camera can bear. And whilst our knowledge of the universe is ever-growing, we can only encounter and know it from our own humble vantage point. Here are five films that look at the sun from here on earth through the gaze of the master animator Larry Jordan, the scientific poets Semiconductor and French genius of the frame; Rose Lowder.

Brilliant Noise                                    Semiconductor                 (GB/2006/ video/ 6mins)

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. Here are some of the suns finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise.

Solar Sight                          Lawrence Jordan             (US/2011/ 16mm/ 15mins)

Paintings and photographs (nature scenes, portraiture, King Tut’s golden mask) are  juxtaposed in a beautiful moving film collage. The film uses cut-out material that verges on the post-modern, but rather than critique and ironic comment it achieves a cosmic sense of wonder out of the combination of this 20th century imagery.

Heliocentric                      Semiconductor                 (GB/2010 / video/ 15 mins)

Heliocentric uses time-lapse photography and astronomical tracking to plot the sun’s trajectory across a series of landscapes. The sun stays in the centre of each frame; filming into the sun creates lens flares and glare spill over the landscape, white outs burn the image, and colours bleed into one, it becomes a stylus to reality’s groove.

Solar sight II                     (US/Lawrence Jordan 2011 / 16mm / 10mins)

The film is partly planned, partly improvised under the camera. All effects and editing are done in camera. Approaches to the cut-out material are the same as in part 1 but this is a very different film, more meditative with a slower pace.

Jardin Du Sel (Salt Garden)                       Rose Lowder                      (FR/2011/ 16mm/ 16mins)

Six poetic sections, five based on the sun, the wind and the sea, while the last rests on a small park left fallow. The sun creates salt flowers before our eyes – liquid sun gold.