A contemporary experimental film maker who has worked with found footage and degradation techniques. His most praised piece, Decasia (2002), was made from found footage from public access archives and libraries which had been damaged through poor storage methods and were damaged through lyrical nitrate.
The soundtrack was composed with similar ideas in relation to the feeling of damage, uncertainty of time and a confusion of narrative achieved through out of tune pianos, damaged instruments and a undefined pulse and fleeting rhythmic patterns.
Decasia is an artful collage of found archival footage, all of it shot pre-1950 on a cellulose nitrate base and most of it in advanced stages of decay. The footage is slowed to allow a greater appreciation of the effect and character of the visual damage to the original materials, which include everything from fragments of silent melodramas to ethnographic studies, travelogues, newsreel footage and wildlife documentaries. The material is edited to a modernist symphonic score by Michael Gordon; the aural dissonance complements the visual decay. British Film Institute (BFI)
Light is Calling follows similar techniques but it is a re-edited copy of James Young's 'The Bells' (1926).
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