Kalpana Subramanian

A collection of 190-second short films created in response to COVID-19, commissioned by filmmakers Usama Alshaibi and Adam Sekuler.

A homage in Super 8, to Stan Brakhage’s metaphors on vision, shot at Boulder Creek, Colorado. The title alludes to a reference to a quote by Leonardo da Vinci in a correspondence between Brakhage and Guy Davenport.

20 min, HD video, color, sound

A serendipitous ritual of memory Colliding archives of body and place A cine-incantation to freedom and (be)longing

An abstract, meditative piece, Empyrean was “filmed” at the altar of celluloid cinema. Using a mobile phone camera, director Kalpana Subramanian intercepted mediated light from the projector during screenings of various 16mm prints of films by Stan Brakhage (1933-2003). The film is part of her larger, art-based research project, Light Mediated: Eyes on Brakhage, which explores the poetics of the moving image.

The word ‘Tattva’ in Sanskrit, alludes to the basic elements of nature that determine the material manifestation of all matter and organic life. This film experiments with cinematic projections, microbiology architecture and performance, to inquire into the material 'nature’ of our 'being’. A scanning electron microscope was used to capture the interior landscapes of everyday matter. These images merge with skins and walls engaging in a performance of projected light, poetically evoking a dissolution of boundaries between human-nonhuman, subject-object, art-science, matter and spirit.