choleric

A natural progression from photography is the evolution into motion – bringing still images to life.

Like his partners at Hermann & Audrey, Javier shares a deep passion for film, and increasingly has been expanding his creativity in this arena. In February of this year Javier worked alongside Lawrence Williams on a “high profile documentation” called Choleric, the artistic brain child of sculpstist and installation artist Richard Stipl. “Stipl wanted to have a video that served as an art piece and as a showcase of the installation at the same time. It was up to Lawrence and I to come up with a visual solution for him” says Javier.

“It’s supposed to be creepy,” Javier explained. “A lot of the thematics Richard works with feel like the result of a nuclear fallout.” The awe-inspiring post-apocalyptic set, according to Javier, takes up a four and half by ten foot space. It’s an original installation by Stipl which features wax sculptures (hyenas and self portraits), and a painting that acted as the background for the piece.

Although the film has a distinct “stop-motion” quality, the final effect acheived is more fluid – a liquid in and of itself.

“We were treating the still camera as though it were a cinematic motion camera,” Lawrence explained. “Jav walked around shooting bursts of stills and I ‘hand-stitched’ them together.”

An unanticipated result, the filming technique has a choppy, disjointed effect, as though the viewer is “sniffing around” its surroundings.

The idea behind the technique, Lawrence continued, was to create something that looked as though they’d been using either really sophisticated digital equipment or really old school optical equipment; to maintain the dynamic range and ensure the finished product looked “kinda creepy”.

Mark Stuart, a sound engineer working in film and television, provided clips for the soundtrack, which Williams manipulated to fit with the aesthetic of the timeline: “He was the composer, and I did the mix”.

The mysterious nature of this stop motion inspired technique combined with Mark’s haunting track illustrate Javier’s and William’s vision to mirror the dark, shadowy drama and complex emotion evoked by Richard’s work. In Javier’s own words, “The whole thing is weird.”

Visit Lawrence’s website to see what he is currently up to.