Ian Helliwell

Naturally decayed found Super-8 footage of children's and adult's games has been cut up with scissors and spliced back together to reveal new rhythms and connections. Soundtrack: Tape loop, keyboard and ring modulator, homemade Hellitron generators.

A Super-8 portrait of Jeff Keen. This short but evocative experimental portrait melds Keen's style with that of its maker, Ian Helliwell, another artist filmmaker based in Brighton. The title comes from an adage of Jeff Keen's and features Keen reading some Keen-isms.

A 2022 film by Ian Helliwell.

Found Super 8 footage is the basis of this flicker film which has been hand treated with ink and bleach. Every other frame has been coloured with a black marker pen to create the flicker and cracked mosaic effect.

Found super-8 footage giving a short demonstration in the art of paper folding; the film has been bleached and cut up, and accompanied by electronic music and animated titles. Soundtrack: Hellitron tone generators.

Ian Helliwell's 2011 documentary about an important and previously untold link in the history of early British Electronic Music, F.C. Judd.

The underlying chessboard image is derived from modified TV test pattern apparatus distorted by audio signals from a sinewave generator; filmed off a monitor with super 8, then coloured in with black ink and coated with household bleach. After initial editing on film it was compiled into positive, negative and split screen in a 1-2-4-2-1 sequence. The 4 track electronic music made with Helliwell's homemade circuits, also follows this symmetrical order.

Standard 8 found footage featuring a home movie wedding sequence in the 1960s. The film then goes behind the scenes to capture what happens afterwards in the newlywed`s honeymoon hotel room.

An abstract Super-8 film made by shooting directly into the beam of a projector through a distorting lens. Shards of coloured light pierce the blackness, accompanied by electronic music from customised circuits.

Experimental short film by Ian Helliwell.

A short section of found super-8 lip-reading film set in a doctor`s waiting room, covered in bleach, drastically edited and completed with titles and a soundtrack of homemade electronic music. The sounds, all generated with Helliwell`s unique electronic generators, create a jagged accompaniment to the cut-up images.

Electronically generated images, including Lissajous patterns from a modified television, were captured on Super-8 film and then treated by hand with coloured inks and bleach. Each of the five sections is closely matched by electronic music from Helliwell's customized circuits.

A direct animation film made over a period of 3 years, using clear Super 8 covered with ink and overlaid with various Letraset shapes. The titles use paper cut-out animation, and the soundtrack features Helliwell's electronic sounds and improvisation on toy organ.

Strips of adhesive Letratone textures were applied to super 8 film; to create the soundtrack the edited movie was played back and registered by a special photocell controlled audio generator, and the resulting tones were modified through speed changing.

A hand processed super-8 film shot at a Brighton cemetery, further enhanced with ink drawn directly onto the footage. The film`s texture arises from a combination of the rough processing, black ink and accumulation of dust particles.

Recording the moving junk sculpture of Brighton collective Circus Kinetica, this super 8 film was shot on the seafront near their studio in the summer of 2009, with a mixture of live action, stop motion and superimposition. The soundtrack features Hellitron generators, radio and tape.

Experimental short film by Ian Helliwell.

Evolving out of bleached off-cuts from the 1998 film 'Into The Light', this short abstract sequel overlays super 8 film shot directly into a projector beam.

A film by Ian Helliwell.

Abstract audio-generated waveform patterns from an oscilloscope and modified TV, were filmed with super-8 and then treated with bleach and vinegar. The electronic music features a special Hellitron photocell audio generator which reacts to varying amounts of light in the film. Soundtrack: Hellitron 10.