British Council Logo UK Films Database
Project Detail

Evolutionary Jerks and Gradualist Creeps

Synopsis

Two evolutionary biologists, Niles Eldredge and Armand Marie Leroi consider the analogies and differences between the cultural and the biological realms, comparing the history of life within the fossil record with the evolution of pop music. Marquiss draws on Eldredge’s pattern of evolution as a cue for image-making processes and editing structures to transpose scientific enquiry into cultural production.
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2016 - Experimenta Strand

Details

Year
2016
Type of project
Shorts
Running time
38 mins
Director
Duncan Marquiss
Editor
Duncan Marquiss
Director of Photography
Duncan Marquiss
Sound
Duncan Marquiss; Sound Mix: Derek O'Neill
Composer
Duncan Marquiss; Trumpet: Phillip Gurrey; Drums: Iain Stewart
Principal cast
Niles Eldredge, Armand Marie Leroi

Genre

Experimental

Categories

Artist Project and Video / Experimental

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Duncan Marquiss

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Collision Index Collision Index

Director: Duncan Marquiss

Year: 2018

The eccentric collection of the McManus museum in Dundee is reorganised into a new analogical composition that tests new and unexpected relationships between things. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2018 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Experimental
Search Film Search Film

Director: Duncan Marquiss

Year: 2015

Considering innate human foraging behaviour by comparing a biologist’s field study of goshawks with searching in other contexts. The project developed from conversations between the artist Duncan Marquiss and his father, biologist Dr. Mick Marquiss. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2015 - Experimenta Strand - World premiere

Experimental
Face, boy, eclipse A Season in Secret

Director: Matthew Berka

Year: 2027

A SEASON IN SECRET brings together material both close at hand and far away. It is a meditation on things glimpsed at a distance and the limits of perception. What lies behind the screen is hidden and may only be hinted at through the language of visible images and sounds. The film takes some of its cues from the Japanese aesthetic concept of Yūgen, described in part by the 15th-century aesthetician Zeami Motokiyo: “...to stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands.”

Experimental