Sorcha Dallas

Featuring eight short films made betwen 1958 and now, I am a Camera shows how different artists have used the medium ‘to transform the ordinary through the use of filmmaking to radical effect’. Sometimes these ‘radical’ effects are little more than an assault on the senses, but the more successful works on show have an almost dizzingly hypnotic appeal.

Len Lye’s Free Radicals, made in 1958 but revised in 1979, is one of the simplest but most memorable works on show. Lye, a New Zealand artist who began experimenting with film in the late-1920s, scratched marks directly on to black film emulsion, resulting in lines and shapes that appear to dance acroos the screen in time with the insistent rhythms of the soundtrack.

More recent works such as Katy Dove’s Motorhead (2002) and Welcome (2008) also marry music and moving abstract images to impressive effect, while Craig Mulholland ‘s Plastic Casino (2004), referencing everything from supermatism to surrealism, casts a dark light on urban regeneration schemes.

The total running time of the films is just over an hour, and while some works may try your patience a little, I am a Camera will appeal to anybody with more than a passing interest in how artists have explored the medium of film.