Altered States: Experiments in Moving Image

Altered States: Experiments in Moving Image reexamines the tactile beauty and transformative possibilities of the moving image through material interventions in film, featuring works by a select group of artists who employ everyday materials, cameraless techniques, chemical and ecological processes in their experimental filmmaking practice.

With two distinct sections that negotiate between the analogue past and immersive present, the exhibition begins with the work of two seminal figures in avant-garde cinema, Len Lye and Stan Brakhage, whose anti-narrative impulses and curious interventions paved the way for a new generation of celluloid disruptors. From photochemical manipulations with bleach and liquid baths (Cécile Fontaine) to symbolic burials of film stock in menstrual blood (Louise Bourque), landfills (Jennifer Reeves) and radioactive soil (Tomonari Nishikawa), cinematic qualities are revealed through alternative, earthly materials. This section also includes rare close-ups of 16mm film strips by two Southeast Asian artists—Lynn Loo from Singapore, known for her multi-projector, expanded cinema performances, and Gotot Prakosa, an early experimental filmmaker who countered mainstream cinema in Indonesia in the 1970s with his abstract, hand painted 16mm shorts.

Alluding to the corporeal whilst simultaneously decentering figurative imagery, these works move past the nostalgia of the analogue age in order to interrogate and expand the visual language and practices of handmade cinema, or, as Stan Brakhage puts it—to approach the moving image as “an adventure of perception”.

At the core of Altered States are four striking film presentations:

Liquid Solid (2015) by the Dutch artist duo Nicky Assmann and Joris Strijbos charts the mesmerising process of freezing soap in the sub-Arctic. The cinematic experience explores the transformation of a liquid soap membrane, creating a visual spectacle that captures its iridescence and intricate fractal patterns. Accompanied by a soundscape of whale song and electromagnetic signals from the Northern Lights, the work uncovers an entire microuniverse found within the elemental act of changing states.

Another significant work is Fallen Candles – Triplet (2015) by Japanese artist Youki Hirakawa, which establishes a minimalist vigil of the passage of time through the burning of three candles. A clinical experiment that augments the phenomenological perceptions of time and space, the work also offers spiritual and ecological insight into the interconnectedness of all beings, all things, and most importantly, redemption and renewal through material transformation.

The intersections between nature and experimental filmmaking techniques are explored in Revenants: Optographic Animation (2023) a video installation by UK artist Sapphire Goss. Scratching and shooting on eighty year old expired film stock, Goss exposes a series of surreal landscapes as a consequence of the imperfections in the medium—increased static and grain caused by the expired emulsion seamlessly blend with the subject of light on water, while accidental chemical stains from processing form into clouds—creating a strange and sublime impression of the Kent coast, an area in the south of the UK known for its rich geological heritage.

Bringing the film experimentations into more philosophical and embodied territory is Singaporean artist Toh Hun Ping. His innovative multimedia installation Dance of a Humble Atheist (2019) involves six hundred meticulously handcrafted ceramic reliefs, each one painstakingly scanned and animated frame-by-frame. With these, Toh crafts a three-chapter journey that explores themes of death, the afterlife and the natural world through a frenetic interplay of light, textures, and shadow.

Through these immersive video installations, Altered States: Experiments in Moving Image encourages a sensual mode of viewing that recalls the tactile and analogue allure of celluloid.

Artists include: Nicky Assmann (The Netherlands), Louise Bourque (Canada), Stan Brakhage (USA), Cécile Fontaine (France), Sapphire Goss (UK), Youki Hirakawa (Japan), Lynn Loo (Singapore), Len Lye (New Zealand), Tomonari Nishikawa (Japan), Gotot Prakosa (Indonesia), Jennifer Reeves (USA), Joris Strijbos (The Netherlands), Toh Hun Ping (Singapore).

Curated by ArtScience Museum (Jerome Chee and Rachel Wong with Adrian George and Honor Harger).

More information can be found here.