Week 07: Ceci N’est Pas Embres

In our lab last week, we took a brief look at Matt Soar’s K-film and discussed the following:

  • The opening SNU is all about animation, roads, setting of location. It is leading us somewhere.
  • Soar has deliberately chosen to establish a scene/the arrival.
  • The work is complex in terms of the multiple fragments presented because Soar has invested a lot of post-production in each individual clip.
  • There are sequences with animation added to them, some which use a kind of stop-motion with still photographs.
  • There is a lot of diversity/idiosyncrasy.
  • The main interface is seasonal, showing time of year and location. However, the K-film uses multiple interfaces.
  • This presents an almost bricolage effect, connecting the interface and the patterns that arise in the film – using images over the top of each other, interfaces which change shape and structures, and animation over real life footage.
  • Seth told us that the work is representative  of Soar’s previous careers (working in construction, design, advertising and animation). Therefore, the piece explores this creative processes at the time, making it an incredibly interesting self-reflexive piece.

You can find Soar’s film here.

Adrian also pointed us in the direction of this interview with Matt Soar. I really like reading about his response to issues such as “the edge spaces between, and around, established media” which he is currently interesting in. I also liked hearing him talk about his creative process (and how this intercepts with the commercialised world).

He also raised a really interesting point about how you display interactive works to large audiences (such as at a film festival where both himself and Florian Thalhofer have displayed their K-films), when they are traditionally created for audiences of one.