IMAGE/MOMENT

by Michael MAZIÈRE
1985 / b&w / silent / 2S / 30' 00

“But involuntary memory is an unruly magician not to be importuned. It chooses its own time and place for the performance of its miracle”.
– Samuel Beckett, Proust

I refilmed photographs taken over a period of ten years in an attempt to dispel their nostalgic effect and question their momentary testimony. By shifts in scale, lighting, focus and the use of multiple image layers Image Moment leaves the gaps, confusion and conflicts present in the act of remembrance. Movement, stillness, light and dark mix to touch on the chaotic and multiple movement of traces through memory.

“IMAGE/MOMENT signalled a return to a more formal mode which nevertheless retains a strong concern with image content, as well as texture and surface. In IMAGE/MOMENT formal devices are employed in a densely layered work consisting of refilmed photographs of a subjective nature with refilmed footage. The camera functions as animateur, in the sense that the continual de-focusing and re-focusing, superimposed zooms in and out, and the opening and closing of the lens aperture creates movement; dark areas expand and contract, edges break up and reform, light patches spread and float as they turn paler, creating a kind of pure cinematic motion out of stillness.”
– Nicky Hamlyn

“Image Moment explores space in a surprisingly lyrical way.”
– City Limits

1 PRINT IN DISTRIBUTION


distribution format 16mm
screen 1,37 - Standard (double screen)
speed 24 fps
sound silent
rental fee 101,00 €