In NERVOUS KEN, experimental film legend Ken Jacobs
is "interviewed" by my urbane 12-year old M.C., Emma
Bernstein. Envisioning an exploration of the nature of listening
(of apprehending or not, remembering or not, and creating meaning)
and of the repetitions & variations of verbal expression
and its accompanying often-emphatic physical gesturing as a basis
for making visual music, I, as filmmaker turned "media
artist", employ the full range of temporal manipulation
available within my concurrent digital set-up, exploiting unique
corners which differentiate DV from 16mm, though including frequent
references to themes & techniques from Jacobs' own work within
the arcanum of film. The "musical score" is derived
through permutations of the sync track. This was the first released
section from the ongoing series, premiering March 2004 at the
Museum of Modern Art. (duration 20min)
Watch "Nervous Ken" in Fullscreen
KING RICHARD is a portrait of New York avant-garde
playwright Richard Foreman in his Ontological-Hysteric Theatre.
A charming yet revealing interview on the set by pre-teen protagonist
Emma Bee Bernstein is interwoven with footage focusing on the
periphery of a recent production--the elaborate set design and
lighting, the non-speaking supporting cast (the so-called "stage
crew") with their frantic movement patterns, typical props
and recurrent imagery, all shot & edited in a disruptive
manner to mimetically compensate for the loss of actual presence.
Though it may sound odd for a work which has never left the digital
realm, I think of 
KING RICHARD as a totally hand-made
piece. Probably because I fidgeted with it for so long, even
carrying it with me on a LaCie drive whenever I left town. I
had shot the interview in 1997 after a performance of BENITA
CANOVA and the performance footage not until the final dress
rehearsal of COWBOY RUFUS RULES THE UNIVERSE in 2004. I first
assembled them as two separate strands, suffering over every
frame, tweaking density/saturation/contrast/brightness/ direction/orientation,
analyzing Foreman's rhythms and creating my own, building and
eliminating patterns of repetition, downloading thousands of
relevant images from Google, synching the performance footage
to every combination of Foreman's sound loops on Ubu.com, expanding
and shrinking my ingredients (like baking bread), then interweaving
(like a tapestry), chipping away the unnecessary, to create the
right nuance of movement and thought, emotion and motion. Curators
don't seem to get this piece. I don't understand
because I find it fantastic and endlessly interesting. This is
my most misunderstood work in years! That's why I'm
giving it away to you so you can see for yourself. (duration
20min)
Watch "King Richard" in fullscreen.
Hills introduction to his final cut of "Emma's Dilemma" (2012)
Below are excerpts from some sections of the final, all in-process as of 2004.
EMMA'S DILEMMA, my major project at the turn
of the millennium, has not yet been completed. I haven't
touched it since I began teaching in Prague several years ago
and it seemed a shame to not at least share some of its
treasures. Shooting began in 1997 shortly before Emma's
12 th birthday and basically completed when she was 17 (although
it could restart at any moment). Our first encounter was with
Jackson MacLow and we continued through Fiona Templeton, Tony
Oursler, Cheryl Donegan, Keith Sanborn, Carolee Schneemann, Sianne
Ngai, Charles Bernstein, Felix Bernstein and Susan Bee (all forthcoming),
as well as those presented here. Gradually as she moved from
sophisticated child to confrontational adolescent, Emma began
to command center stage (also forthcoming). I missed a few hair
color changes while out of town on an editing job in 2001. Editing
proceeded sporadically, but was more or less continuous throughout
2002-2004 , altering speed, direction, orientation, density,
color balance, employing repetition with or without variation.
Complex cuts were made into single objects which could then themselves
be heavily manipulated. Hopefully each section is radically different
in form and method. Finally, though, no matter how wacked-out
my experiments, the internal spirit of the composition takes
control and leads where it will.
The selections:
PennSound on Facebook
PennSound on Twitter
PennSound on YouTube
