My work in cinema over the past 25 years can be divided into three broad areas:

– The ‘Early’ period was focused more on fiction filmmaking, as I learned my craft through my own short films, while working on independent fiction films in New York as both Assistant Director and Editor

– In my ‘Middle’ period there was a focus more on Experimental and gallery-based work as a Filmmaker and Curator, while I continued to expand my skills as an Editor and as a Producer on independent films and documentaries in New York.

– The most recent period has seen a focus primarily on making my own work in both Observational and Creative Documentary with an eye towards feature-length works that will ultimately combine all three main filmmaking styles.

The films in this selection come from my ‘Middle’ period, and from a long association with the Experimental Film world in New York through Ocularis and our long-standing relationship with Anthology Film Archives, and include:

With You
2006 • 4 min. • b&w • 16mm • NY
WITH YOU is excerpted from the longer form i, of k – a contemporary cinema collaborative exploration of the film medium inspired by Warhol’s seminal film Kiss (1963).

With Wind & White Cloud
2005 • 4 min. • b&w • Super 8 • NY
Oskar Fischinger’s 1927 film Walking from Munich to Berlin was one of the first single-frame films ever made. In the space of three minutes (one camera roll) Fischinger traversed the length of Germany visually articulating the accelerated mode of modern life and anticipating the break-neck speed of the moving image that would come much later with the advent of MTV and television commercials.

In 2003, I found myself in Istanbul for the premiere CUZCO 1999. Intent on traveling over land to Berlin I made my way on eastern European trains with a Super 8 camera and a copy of Bordewll & Thompson’s Film Art: An Introduction. I pointed the camera out the window and 14 days, and 3,240 single frame images later (230 per day) this film was complete.

WW&WC is a contemporary homage to Fischinger’s inspired journey; traveling from the eastern tip of Europe and Istanbul’s Bosphorous shores through Eastern Europe to the heart of Alexanderplatz in Berlin.

“One of the most Irish films I have ever seen”
Peadar Ó Riada, on WW&WC

Un Peu Moins (A Little Less)
2004 • 5 min. • b&w + colour • Super 8 + Found Footage • NY
An experimental film made with found footage and original Super 8 footage made in collaboration with Konstantin Bojanov.

Vernissage
2003 • 5 min. • b&w + colour • Found Footage • NY
No two film screenings are ever the same. During any projection, the immeasurable exchange of alpha waves between the projected image and the receiving audience is always unique as the cinematic situation changes with different spaces and different audiences participating in the act of receiving the film.

Traditionally one thought of filmmakers or artists as completing their work in the studio or edit room. However, the use of the term vernissage acknowledges the active participation of the audience in receiving the work as the final step in the process of its making; the work is finally made – and re-made over and over again – during the process of an audience’s reception of it.

With this moving image piece the work has physically not been made, does not exist in its finished form, until the audience has finished watching it ….

A live video performance piece consisting of a montage of found footage and the live unknown performance of the audience inspired by Robert Morris’s “Box with the Sound of Its Own Making”.

Empire 2
2002 • 3 min. 40 sec. • colour • Found Footage • NY
40 years ago Warhol made one of his most legendary and least seen films; Empire; an 8-hour meditation on the iconic Empire State Building.

Whereas Warhol’s historical reference for Empire was Lumiere and the actuality; or document, the historical reference for Empire 2 is Melies and the trick film; or fiction. Whereas the original Empire concentrates on the top half of the building, Empire 2 focuses on the idea of the building’s antenna.

Whereas the original film lasted for 8 hours, Empire 2 lasts for 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

Luminous Space
2003 • 12 Min Excerpt from a 43 Min Live Performance • colour + b&w • Found Footage & Live Projection • NY

I was one of the founding members of the Expanded Cinema collective; kinoSonik (1999-2004). For five years kinoSonik presented numerous live improvisationary expanded cinema public performances in New York and Internationally.

Each kinoSonik performance mostly comprised of 16mm film found footage and loops was unique and never repeated.

We did live performance visuals for composed works, at public events and at gigs for bands like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and Genesis P-Orridge & Throbbing Ghristle.

Luminous Space was a live performance piece that premiered at Anthology Film Archives in 2003.  It consisted of 1 x 35mm Projector, 4 x 16mm Projectors, 1 x Video Projector with a live feed, found footage and loops to create a kaleidoscopic live performance visual interstellar voyage through outer and inner space.

With You
June., 2009 – Margenes Festival, Visual ’09, Madrid, Spain
May, 2007 – Live 8, Film & Performance Series
Sept., 2007 – Arttrail, Tension Exhibition, Cork, Ireland
June, 2006 – Ocularis, Brooklyn, NY

With Wind & White Cloud
Jan., 2009 – Excéntric Exhibition, Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
July, 2007 – Bits & Pieces Exhibition, Macroom, Co. Cork, Ireland
Oct., 2006 – Cork Super 8 Fringe Film Festival, Cork, Ireland
June, 2006 – Ocularis, Brooklyn, NY
& As part of the Absensces and Impossibilities
Irish Experimental Film Retrospective:
Jan 2014 – IFI, Dublin
Feb. 2015 – Peck School of the Arts, Milwaukee, USA
November 2014 – Norwegian Film Institute, Oslo
January 2015 – University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art
March 2015 – Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain
March 2015 – London Irish Film Festival
Sept 2015 – The Loft Project, St. Petersburg, Russia
April 2015 – Belfast Film Festival, Ireland

Un Peu Moins (A Little Less),
June., 2009 – Margenes Festival, Visual ’09, Madrid, Spain
July, 2008 – Darklight Film Festival, Dublin, Ireland
4th International Music on Film – Film on Music
Oct., 2007 – Film Festival Prague, Czech Republic
June, 2007 – ArkaVideo & Arts Festival 2007, Assemini, Sardinia, Italy
Nov., 2004 – ‘Curtas’ Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
June, 2006 – Ocularis, Brooklyn, NY

Vernissage
Mar., 2006 – SunKhronos Live Cinema Series, Millennium Film Workshop, NY
June, 2004 – Ocularis, Brooklyn, NY

Empire 2
Feb., 2009 – Clermont Ferrand Film Market, France
May, 2006 – PANORAMICA Video Art Series
May, 2006 – Museo Tamayo – Contemporary Art Museum, Mexico City
May, 2006 – Anthology Film Archives, NY
Feb., 2006 – Spectrum Catalogue of Experimental Film
Nov., 2005 – International Multimedia Festival,
at The Center of Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg, Russia
Oct., 2005 – DUMBO Video Art Festival, Brooklyn, NY
April, 2005 – Bandung Center for New Media Arts, Indonesia

On Sunday, October 30, 1938 the Orson Welles Theatre group broadcast their theatrical interpretation of H.G. Wells’ ‘The War of the Worlds’. It became one of history’s most notorious simulations, creating nation-wide panic, as listeners, thinking that they were listening to a “real” CBS news broadcast, became panic-stricken at the reports of an alien invasion. A journalist writing in 1938 noted: “All unwittingly, Mr. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air …. have demonstrated … the appalling dangers and enormous effectiveness of popular and theatrical demagoguery …”

On Friday, December 7th, 2001 (within 3 months of the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center and in the midst of the U.S. led “War on Terror”) Ocularis distributed small packages to 27 New York based filmmakers. Each package contained one 3 – minute roll of unexposed black and white Super 8 film and a cassette tape containing a 3 – minute audio excerpt from the Orson Welles broadcast. Each filmmaker was given 6 days to shoot the reel as their contemporary visual interpretation of the audio excerpt, in a contemporary New York still reeling from the effects of the 911 attacks and in a society polarized around public opinions on the Bush led “War on Terror”.

In the spirit of the Surrealist’s exquisite corpse approach each filmmaker worked exclusively on their own section without knowing what any of the other filmmakers were working on.

Shot on a shoe-string budget of $450 (raised by contributions of each of the filmmakers) and shot on Super 8 film donated to the project by Kodak, WAR OF THE WORLDS 2001 represents a unique conflation of filmmaking styles and perspectives in a cross-platform fusion and exploration of the medium.

In a completely structural approach the exposed reels were assembled and projected as originally shot in a public presentation at Ocularis’ weekly exhibition forum at Galapagos in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY on Sunday, December 16th, 2001.

WAR OF THE WORLDS 2001 is the result of 27 New York based filmmakers; from experimental, documentary, and fiction film backgrounds; contributing to the project. The shooting styles and approaches in the film range from experimental to documentary to fictionalized scenarios, in a contemporary exploration of representations of the continuing ‘War on Terror’.

An Ocularis Production
In collaboration with a host of NYC based filmmakers

The contributing filmmakers on the project (in order of shooting) are Andy Graydon, Sarah Reynolds, Gegory Baird, Emily Fader, Pedro Mallol, Karyn Riegel, Matt Thompson, Carrie Dashow, Greg Pak, Pegi Vail, Melvin Estrella, Anne Alvergue, Laure Sullivan, Paul Wilson, Bradley Eros, Orpheus Mc Carthy (aka Dónal Ó’Céilleachair), Andrew Lampert, Moira Tierney, Lauren Cornell, Adam Burns, Ian Caskey, Adrian Rieder, Merri Cyr, Jonathan Lees, Marianna Ellenberg, Reynold Reynolds and Carlton Bright.

produced by cristina cacioppo, andrew lampert, dónal ó’céilleachair, karyn riegel

film stock generously provided by kodak

film processing by paclab

post production at postXone

assembly editors eros, o’ceilleachair, lampert

sound mix eros + o’ceilleachair

titles o’ceilleachair + reynolds

special thanx robert elmes + galapagos,  francois boue

digital re-master 2019 benjamin walsh

© an ocularis production 2001

Through this multitude of characters the film gradually builds a portrait of the city of Cuzco; evoking the atmosphere of a specific place at a very specific point in time. It is a documentary about how different people are viewing the same event – observing these different perspectives in the conflict of the moment, yielding an insight into the quotidian workings of an indigenous belief system against the backdrop of an inherited Western way of life, between how things were, how things are and how they are expected (or predicted) to be.

CUZCO 1999 explores a unique Latin American worldview; yielding an insight into an Andean perception of space and time that is radically different to that of the Western worldview, while acknowledging the complexity of their continued co-existence.

Through this lens, the documentary traces an arc through the conflicting spiritual, bureaucratic and political aspirations of the people of the city and points to potential implications on a wider scale at what the we believe will come to be seen as an important juncture in the post-colonial phase of history.

An Anú Pictures (formerly IMI Pictures) Production
in association with Fair Isle Films, NY

Dedicated to the memory of Roberto Guerra (1942 – 2015),
collaborating filmmaker on the film.

Rome International Documentary Festival, Italy – Jun., 2004
Three Continents International Film Festival, Argentina – Feb., 2003
Cork Film Festival – Oct., 2003
Istanbul International Environmental Film Festival, Turkey – June, 2003
Galway Film Festival, Ireland – July, 2003
Docuclub Screening, MoMA, NY – Jan., 2003