Thought Moments is a Buddhist term for the mental states that we experience after a physical or mental object enters the mind. This film examines subjects during such thought moments. It does this by recording reactions to questions that are seemingly innocuous, but actually seek to reveal our true nature.
As the camera looks out through a barred window and the clock strikes four in a Swiss city, the death of Yasser Arafat provides the starting point for a journey back in time. Throwing Stones is the third video in the Hotel Diaries series, a collection of late-night recordings made in foreign hotel rooms which relate personal experiences to contemporary world events.
Other works in the series currently include Frozen War (Ireland, October 8th 2001) and Museum Piece (Germany, October 14th 2004).
Someone is muscling on the Holy Smokes' cocaine deals and they are not amused. Plus six million dollars has gone missing from Heathrow Airport. Hot on the trail of the money is the Metropolitan Police's most corrupt officer, Detective Inspector Greaves. It's a roller-coaster ride as The Holy Smokes wage war against the Chinese Triads, Jamaican Yardies and the English Firm.
Untitled is a metaphor for a sleeping woman in a state of dream or of psychological disintegration. She gradually reassembles, suggesting either a movement from deep dream-like sleep or more likely a pull back from the decision to die. The human capacity to survive terrible terror, whether on an individual level or as a collective persecuted group, sometimes seems to defy understanding.
Bruno Bettelheim, a child psychoanalyst, survived Dachau and Buchenwald but in peacetime, at a mature age, decided to end his own life. It is this choice: the choice, and the possibility, of escaping psychological terror, that enables humans to reconstruct themselves from even extreme disintegration. To paraphrase Nietzche - the thought of suicide gets one through many a long night.
Satan visits his psychoanalyst for advice on marketing Hell as the 'place to be'. His analyst is initially reluctant to comply but eventually realises that he is has been having a bad dream and when he finally awakes the devil has become a Bishop.
More than 3,000 insects appear in this film each for a single frame. As the colours glow and change across their bodies and wings it is as if the genetic programme of millions of years is taking place in a few minutes. It is a rampant creation that seems to defy the explanations of evolutionists and fundamentalists. It is like a mescalin dream of Charles Darwin's.
Wonder is a humorous rendition of Wonder Woman, which syncs together the transformative moments of the acuminating drama as our be- speckled assistant turns to super-heroine. The narrative is emptied of significance while the surface imagery turns into a gloss of texture and action. The layers intermingle as the music and sound drive each episode forward, emphasising the crush of cliché and drama.
Billy Hull was a prison officer in The Maze/Long Kesh. Against prison policy Billy collected items from various individuals, incidents and occurrences. On his retirement Billy organised a display of the objects. The public has never seen this collection.
Cabinet is a meditation on the fetish objects of the Unabomber's story: wilderness, typewriting, cabin, and bomb. The film includes DV and Super 8 footage shot in Montana, archive, computer animation and S16mm live action, a Shaker song, an Edison cylinder recording, and bird song recordings from Cornell University.
Night vs. light, music vs. motion, figuration vs. abstraction. Flowing, twisted tubes of light collide with dark pools of shadow in this nocturnal prowl through a neon cityscape. Created entirely from digital photographs.
This documentary presents the architectural concept of 'Cargo Fleet', which juxtaposes materials from the shipbuilding yards of the North East of England into the urban landscape of Islington. The house is revealed through the reflections of a group of people - actors, dancers, musicians, and artists. Their experience of the place unfolds like a tapestry to which the muses themselves then add their voice. The director plays with contrasting forms and styles, weaving music and language together. She reveals the interior and exterior in shifts of mood and ambience, presenting the viewer with an aural and visual feast.
With poetry by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Shakespeare, San Juan de la Cruz and Alexander Pope. Music by Andrew Peggie and Raiomond Mirza.