Eric Henry
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Contact Information*:
San Francisco California USA |
Contact Type: Artist |
| web: http://www.erichenry.com | |
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Bio:
My work with motion pictures acquired the status of a coherent pursuit with my discovery in 1991 of techniques for manipulating video with a computer. Using an Amiga 500 computer equipped with hardware intended only for single frame capture, and a basic "paint" program with the added feature that it enabled one to cycle through a series of stored images, I was effectively able to digitize source material shot with a VHS camcorder, and have it play back several seconds at a time, albeit with significant loss of detail and at a greatly reduced frame rate. The results were captivating. A special effect introduced by the digitizing process - essentially, noise and distortion - engendered another, even more "special" effect: the displacement of a certain overly-present quality, a somehow embarrassing sense that what is seen refers too readily to a reality mundane and flat, a sort of short circuit to the real which seemed to cling stubbornly to the source material, to the look of video itself; in its stead, a space capable of holding a charge, the injection of something mysterious, desirable, mythic. The same images of a face, a pair of curtains, feet moving over train tracks, but now somehow they described "a World" instead of "the world." It is the way in which the space between these last two, the mythic and the real, are always traversed simultaneously by material techniques (which correspond to special effects in the traditional sense of lighting, editing, image compositing) and affective strategies ("psychic" special effects: location of subjective desire in the proposed reality) that interests me. In my movies, I foreground the special effects operating on both levels to model more complex cultural productions, the ways in which their special effects operate, and how they move in and out of coherence. Consider the bizarre involution of desire implied by the sentiment, "I wish I liked jazz." How does one come to locate one's desire in an object to which one remains in some essential way indifferent, and yet one desires to desire it, such that desire itself is felt as a missing object? I look, in my work, to such instances where myth involvement breaks down and turns in on itself for what they reveal about a more general, more seamlessly functioning set of special effects through which our desires become organized and through which we recognize and make sense of ourselves. Filmography/Awards Info: Filmography: Pirates and Emperors (or, Size Does Matter), 2004 Spokes For The Wheel of Torment, 2004 In The Mood, 2003 Bear Witness III, 2003 Wave Twisters, 2001 Wood Technology in the Design of Structures (or, How to Live Happily Ever After), 1997 Bored Project Movie, 1995 I Desire Only, 1993 Awards: Best Experimental Video for "Wood Technology in the Design of Structures", 1998 Atlanta International Film and Video Festival This Contact appears in this database if Microcinema International has screened a film directed by the Contact, a film directed by the contact is featured in a DVD distributed by the Blackchair Collection Shop, or featured an organization or activity linked with the Contact. This database is used for commercial as well as informational, non-commercial purposes. It is a historical archive of Microcinema International's activities. Inclusion in this database and archive in no way implies a continuing formal relationship or affiliation with Microcinema International or the Blackchair Label nor an endorsement of its activities by the Contact. Contact details are not displayed in order to protect privacy. If you wish to contact this artist please see their website as listed above or write Microcinema International and we will be happy to forward your e-mail.
Microcinema Interview/Article:
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