Prometheus

In our recent Hessien interview for “Home is where the Ghost is”, Charles Sage and Tim Diagram mentioned working on musical accompaniment to a short animated film by their web designer Cameron Chamberlain. The film was recently completed and screened at the National Film and Sound Archive in Australia last week…

Audio for the project included manipulated field recordings taken at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, and at the recently installed Turrell exhibit  “Within Without” at the Australian National Gallery.

Chamberlain had this to say about the piece -

“We have always been intertwined with nature. This relationship was vital for our creation and continues to be important for our survival. Wae strive to progress past our technological and physical boundaries, often to the detriment of this connection. Prometheus references work by artists working in many disciplines, Miyazaki Hayao, Khien Yimsiri, James Turrell and Tadao Ando. It draws upon these artists’ responses to nature and humanity to explore the relationship between them.

The title references the ancient Greek mythological titan Prometheus, and the story of him giving fire to mankind. The myth also makes strong use of cyclicality. In my film, fire represents the technology that humanity uses to progress society. Cyclicality is used in the film to show that nature will keep on growing back, even if we destroy it and in the process ourselves. As in Jurassic Park, ‘life will find a way’.

Mood is one of the most important elements of my work. I am always very mindful of the pacing of my films and what effect it will have on the viewer. This slow, deliberate pacing is drawn from Miyazaki Hayao’s work. He always knows when to slow things down, or speed things up to gain the maximum impact. It is always very enticing to speed things up, move faster, cut quicker. The soundtrack that Charles and Tim have created helps set the mood and pacing that reflects my directorial intent.

The bronze that forms into the central character represents technology and technological progress. Bronze allowed humanity to create much stronger tools than were previously possible. Which also helped our destructive nature, forging stronger weapons with which to harm each other and, often unintentionally, our environments.”

“Home is where the Ghost is” by Hessien has just been made available for download at the Handstitched* Bandcamp site. There may still be a couple of copies of the limited release CD left for sale – contact handstitchedinfo@gmail.com for further information.

www.cameronchamberlain.com
www.handstitched.bandcamp.com
www.hessien.net