There is definitely a need for the type of film and video anthologies that the Tape Projects collective from Melbourne has begun to issue. The premise is that each three months, a DVD is released containing various short films, video clips, video and sound art. This is to consolidate the work they also do organising viewings, artist talks, site specific events and the like.
Watching the DVD is very much like sitting down to watch SBS’ Shorts On Screen late on a Saturday evening. There isn’t a unifying thread running across the pieces, but rather a wide range of media, styles and intentions. Some are excellent. Dan Reid’s film clip for Bit By Bats’ ‘One Six One’ looks like the kind of thing one might find on the tele in Second Life in 5 years’ time, once Second Life gets its act together. Avatars of the band mime to the music as their train runs headlong into destruction. ‘Cremorne Gardens’ by Simon O’Carrigan is beautiful on a number of levels, both thematic and technical. Watching charcoal being pushed, pulled, rubbed and drawn onto a single page as time lapse shows a dozen or so different images grow out of each other, the artist’s hand ever present, reminds you just how magical old fashioned special effects can be and how no amount of computer power can recapture this. The development of the rural into the urban portrayed in the images reinforces this idea. Nick Potter’s brief ‘Stochastic’ is based on an abstract monochrome swirling, smoky type of translucent object and is truly captivating in spite of the rather more clichéd skull image appearing in the background towards the end. Other pieces, however, are not so successful. ‘Version Tours’ by Deborah White raises a smile with it’s misplaced lead character but is clumsily edited and ultimately frustrating. Soda_Jerk’s ‘Picnic At Wolf Creek’ is a pointless exercise in scratch editing utilising iconic Australian film segments from the two films referenced in the title, to Mad Max and Skippy among others. Other works are pleasant enough but not particularly demanding of repeated viewing.
In spite of these downfalls, however, the existence of this kind of outlet is vital. The short-film maker has very few outlets for their work. Extremely progressive cinemas may have an annual showing of this kind of film, as do various film festivals, and Youtube means we can watch ultra-lo-fi compressions of anything we like, but nowhere else are independent short-film makers provided a permanent, viewable, technically sympathetic outlet for their creations. This stifles the growth of their practise. Many artists will make a short film or two and then be eaten up by the industry to become a minor name on a 10 minute list of credits for a box office film. Although this DVD has only just been released, individual works found on it date back to 2004 – there’s obviously a lack of this type of material and what exists, as exemplified by this collection, is inconsistent. Hopefully, the continued efforts of the collective and others like it may encourage the same type of vital outlets afforded to other areas of the arts.
Adrian Elmer
