Private Project

18 Films About Ted Serios, Chapter 6 & 7

As Ted Serios manifest his pictures in a disruptive wink between the physical and the psychic, 18 Films erupts as an effluvia of debris -- the aftermath of corroded photography, malfunctioning surveillance camera, torn / destroyed negatives, electro-acoustic crucibles, etc. The obsessive suturing of these components -- both sound and moving image -- evoke ghosts in the machine, the conditions of psychological trauma, and the erratic slippages between states of being. Thoughtographic dislocation.

Sound is constructed in situ through electro-acouctic means -- shortwave radio, transducers, rough-hewn guitar pick-ups, wiretapping microphones, motors, controlled feedback etc. -- and is choreographed into the video feed collected from three surveillance camera sources and DVD in various states of precision. The images, while mostly fixed, do have the capacity for malleability through the disruption and interruption of the surveillance cameras.

Chapter Six explores the dystopia of California dreamin' and Chapter Seven travels to Estonia researching the perils of crumbled Soviet architecture, owl shit and spoilt milk.

  • Jim Haynes
    Director
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Web / New Media
  • Runtime:
    27 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    December 1, 2015
  • Production Budget:
    2,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Estonia, Germany, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Surveillance Camera & HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Lausanne Underground Film Festival
    Lausanne, Switzerland
    October 21, 2015
    European Premier
  • SF Cinematheque
    San Francisco, California
    November 6, 2015
  • Artist Television Access
    San Francisco, California
    July 3, 2015
  • Antimatter [Media Art]
    Victoria
    Canada
    October 20, 2016
Director - Jim Haynes
Director Statement

I rust things.

This statement has been at the center for my work for close to two decades now, embracing a multiplicity of meanings across various media. There are three major approaches in the work at large: the mangled surfaces of my corroded photographs, the cryptic tension of the video / expanded cinema pieces, and the caustic field disturbances in sound composition. Blight. Dislocation. Subcutaneousness. Toxicity. Brackishness. Psychic unease. These allusions (amongst others) develop and materialize through various chemical, digital and/or analog means, often an intertwined amalgam. This process seeks to accentuate the instability of these conditions and territories as a series of evocations, hauntings, convulsions, and evanescence.

The corroded photographs date back to the early '90s when i discovered a means of re-activating the photosensitive properties of silver gelatin prints and embedding distressed copper and steel into the surface of the photographs. Not only did this result in a unique patina, but it also introduced time into my work as these photographs demonstrated an ongoing visual transformation. At first, this reaction would be quite pronounced; but even after many years, these corroded photographs exhibited subtle shifts in their bruised surfaces. The subject matter of the photographs often features arson sites, crumbled architectural forms, and the borders between the natural and the man-made. More recently, I have begun to use the human form in the photographs, further complicating the psychological allusions to the work.

Through sound (and more recently video), I continue to investigate these properties of corrosion. Specifically, I have focused on how decay parallels and relates to the perception of time when cycles of activity collapse into stasis, and how that stasis can rupture when any number of pressures are applied. These result from a cross-contamination of ultrasound detection, shortwave reception, surveillance camera observation, moribund radiophonic exploration, and/or electro-magnetic disruption.

Currently, I reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I have exhibited internationally at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art, the Lausanne Underground Film Festival, the Berkeley Art Museum, WestSpace (Melbourne, Australia), and Diapason (New York). Recorded media has been published through Editions Mego, Ghostly International, Drone Records, Hooker Vision, Intransitive, Semperflorens, Elevator Bath, and The Helen Scarsdale Agency. I have also been awarded residencies at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, Jack Straw Productions (Seattle), and MoKS (Estonia). I have participated in a number of fruitful collaborations with Loren Chasse, Keith Evans, Steven Stapleton, and M.S. Waldron. Until 2015, I was the Vice President and Curatorial Director for 23five Incorporated, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and increased awareness of sound arts within the public arena. Through 23five, I co-curated the 2003 San Francisco Electronic Music Festival and the Activating The Medium Festivals from 2007 to 2012.