Review: Melbourne Fringe Festival: Superstream
It would be hard to deny that film is generally a collaborative medium, or, not just one medium in fact but many – a multiplicity of practices brought to bear on a storyline, theme or idea. Practitioners of experimental video conversely tend to be (out of necessity) lone practitioners – acting as director, cinematographer, editor and sometimes key performer and sound designers in their own works. It was fascinating, therefore, to see members of the Superflux collective (of Grenoble, France) team up with local AV outfit Stream Collective on “Superstream”; a site-specific, multi-projection, collaborative and improv-based screening night as part of this year’s Fringe festival recombining individual film/video practices into a new whole.
Created over 5 intense days of experimentation, negotiation, conversation and play and staged in the Mechanics Institute theatre in Brunswick, the result was ambitious, engaging and exciting. The performance consisted of Superflux artists Etienne Caire and Gaëlle Rouard operating 16mm film projectors from either side of the room; Lionel Palun creating live video feedback; Richard Bokhobza on bass guitar and noise toys; and Stream Collective’s Marcia Jane performing live video projection with Marco Cher Gibard and Rosalind Hall creating sounds on laptop and saxophone. The threat of sensory overload loomed large, as you might imagine. The result was, in fact, a sophisticated conversation between mediums and an effective riffing on the cinema experience.
The artists were set up on tables at the back of the room, with most of the audience seated on cushions on the floor (to avoid interrupting the line of the projections). The image began small, and would gradually build up and dissapate again, over a very large screen. A few people were craning their necks to see who was projecting what, and how they were divvying up screen space between them, but I was happy to let it remain a mystery, and see how successful or unsuccessful it was as a cohesive whole. Mostly it was the former, but even in moments when the image started getting too complicated, or muddied by too much projector light, the artists would seize on this and develop it to their advantage- opening the gate on the projector to flood the screen with light and then physically interrupt the stream with a hand, for one example.
The noise of the hand cranking of the projectors became a part of the total sound track, reflecting the conversation that emerged between digital and analog, and live and pre-recorded modes of audio-visual performance. The physical presence of the sounds was notable. It didn’t feel like it was coming from some overarching, anonymous system, but occupied a real space in the room.
Imagery was diverse, ranging from scraps of film footage (European and Eastern), processed video and prepared abstractions. Many times the video projection would reflect and re-cast the film projection- distorting, doubling, resizing it. There was an uncanny urgency and tension of some of the interplay between sound and image, the building rhythm, and the exploration of shot & reverse-shot in some of the film footage. Marcia Jane’s beautiful abstract lines in striking white, blue and red, alternately framed or cut through the more representational collages that emerged.
Superflux showed great innovation in their use of multiple, performed projection combined with an absolute focus on improvisation – a practice they have explored over many years – and it is fantastic that local artists have had the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from them. I for one came away inspired and buzzing with ideas about “image dialogues”, “live montage” and analog/digital “conversations”, and it will be particularly interesting to see how this gig affects future Stream works.
Superflux are performing at Horse Bazaar’s weekly Stutter event tonight September 29th and on October 27th.
