Short Film Series

Guy Sherwins SHORT FILM SERIES was made between 1976 and 2014 Eventually he issued 34 films Some are single studies of light focused on the reflections in an eye shot in closeup Others are domestic as in the PORTRAIT WITH PARENTS or BREATHING Many deal with two rates of time measurement as in CLOCK AND CANDLE or construct visual paradoxes as in the shuddering stasis of METRONOME an illusion caused by the clash between the springwound mechanisms of the Bolex camera and of the metronome itself In BARN DOOR the semistrobe effect of light pulsations flattens the distant landscape Interestingly Sherwin has recently returned to the series after almost twenty years with studies of animals and insects which in part recall the fascination with the invisible side of nature felt by the surrealists and seen in the scientific writing of Roger Caillois and the films of Jean Painleve during the 1930s