Guy Sherwin
Directing
Biography
Born in 1948, Guy Sherwin studied painting at Chelsea School of Art in London. Inspired by films and expanded cinema from the London Filmmakers’ Co-op, he began making films and acquired laboratory skills while working there during the 1970s. His 16mm films are often highly concentrated in their form, but very diverse in terms of their imagery and approach. The Short Film Series (1975-ongoing) and live performance pieces such as Man with Mirror (1976-ongoing) involve human, animal and natural phenomena transcribed as filmic subjects, while his optical sound films and performances explore a wide variety of abstract audiovisual ideas.
Known For
One of a series of films that uses soundtracks generated directly from their own imagery. I shot the images of a staircase specifically for the range of sounds they would produce. I used a fixed lens to film from a fixed position at the bottom of the stairs. Tilting the camera up increases the number of steps that are included in the frame. The more steps that are included the higher the pitch of sound. A simple procedure gave rise to a musical scale (in eleven steps which is based on the laws of visual perspective. A range of volume is introduced by varying the exposure. The darker the image the louder the sound (it can be the other way round, but Musical Stairs uses a soundtrack made from the negative of the image.) The fact that the staircase is neither a synthetic image, nor a particularly clean one (there happened to be leaves on the stairs when I shot the film) means that the sound is not pure, but dense with strange harmonics. – G.S.
Musical Stairs
No description available.
Eye
NEW SHORES is a sister film to IN THE STONE HOUSE in many ways. Like the latter film, it consists of earlier footage edited in recent years. It could be seen as a sequel to IN THE STONE HOUSE especially since it begins with a cross-country journey to the West Coast, where I settled, and concludes with a visit, in 1987, to the “stone house” in rural New Jersey. Even though there is some sort of time line that can be imagined, the film stands on its own. It is simply a series of episodes that touch upon facets of living in a new area with new weather, new people, new identities and stubborn old fears. The Bolex camera goes to work across landscapes and living areas, workplaces and gatherings. A dance of images: can beauty partner with dread and death? It’s a film of the coexistences that percolate beneath the surface of ordinary events. A film of useless hopes and baseless fears.
New Shores
There is something exhilarating about observing an artistic star that shines at the edge of the cosmos, and steadfastly refuses to move to the centre, that even seems to vanish beyond the periphery as time and fashion move on, only for it to become visible again”. Tim Cawkwell.
Why there is something rather than nothing
short film by Guy Sherwin
Flight
No description available.
Hand/Shutter
Optical sound film by Guy Sherwin
Phase Loop
No description available.
Window/Light
No description available.
Clouds & Wires
No description available.
Swimming
A film made without a camera: A newspaper glued onto clear film is projected as audio-visual typography. "For NEWSPRINT I glued a newspaper onto clear 16mm film then punched out the sprocket holes to enable the film to run through the projector. Using a strong light I printed ‘newspaper-film’ to copy it onto another strip of film. This shows up the letters and words clearly, which can also be heard as they pass over the sound-head in the projector. Newsprint #2 is a live projection event for two 16mm projectors and two loudspeakers [...] Two identical prints are shown superimposed onto the same screen." -GS.
Newsprint #1
No description available.
Yi Wei
No description available.
Breathing
No description available.
Wind & Water
No description available.
Portrait with Parents
No description available.
Gnats
No description available.
Piano
No description available.
Maya
No description available.
Cat
No description available.