Private Project

Off-Center

This short offers a hypnotic, sense of synesthesia in flux thanks to the use of an endless escalator, moving signage and an extreme close-up courtesy of my ophthalmologist. Some viewers may feel a bit woozy, off-kilter, and that is fine. If you ever heard of either inner-ear syndrome or the surrealist trope of 'the exquisite corpse' you are just getting started. Score by Yair Etziony.

The Equilibrium of Excess: As a filmmaker, I have always been fascinated by the threshold where the biological meets the mechanical. This short film is an attempt to map that intersection—not through a traditional narrative, but through a sensory "overload" that mirrors the disorienting beauty of synesthesia in flux.

  • TJ Norris
    Director
  • TJ Norris
    Producer
  • Yair Etziony
    Score/Composer
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Non-Narrative, Experimental
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 20 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 6, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    1,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable

  • United States
Director Biography - TJ Norris

TJ Norris is an award-winning multidisciplinary conceptual artist and curator whose practice navigates the abstract psychology, social complexities, and the evolving friction between the natural and the manufactured. With a career spanning over forty years, his work is defined by a "wabi-sabi" sensibility and Surrealist influences, focusing on the beauty found within the fractured, the ephemeral, and the urban environment. Norris’s rigorous conceptual foundation was built at the Massachusetts College of Art and the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design.

His cinematic practice has seen a prolific return since 2022, building upon early highlights like the micro-short 'auto-porto-matic' (1993)—curated by Cheryl Dunye for DCTV—and the two-channel installation 'Infinitus' (2008), which was a recipient of the New American Art Union’s Couture Grant. This recent body of work has earned international recognition, with screenings and honors at the Absurd Film Festival (Best Arthouse Film), the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Best Short Film), the East Village Film Festival (Honorable Mention), the I, Immigrant International Film Festival, and the Faba Film Festival. Additionally, his 4-Channel AV installation 'Elemental Studies' is scheduled for an Asian premiere at the A4 Art Museum in Chengdu, China.

Norris’s exhibition record spans global institutions and biennials, including the Tacoma Art Museum’s 10th Northwest Biennial, Gallery X (Dublin), Millepiani (Rome), CoCA Seattle, and the South Bend Museum of Art. His photographic vision was codified in the 2018 monograph 'Shooting Blanks,' and his contributions to the field have been documented in esteemed publications such as Leonardo (MIT Press), Art Ltd, The Boston Globe, and PhotoBook Journal. As a freelance curator and founder of the gallery Soundvision, Norris has curated over thirty exhibitions for venues including Tufts University, Boise State, and the Linnfield College Art Center. His work is held in prominent international collections, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, the Vanhaerents Art Collection (Brussels), Harvard University, the Fuller Museum of Art, Nike, and the Museo de la Ciudad.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

The film’s visual language is anchored in three pillars of rhythmic repetition that dismantle the viewer's sense of "arrival." Through the kinetic infinity of perpetual escalators, the strobe-like chromatic textures of moving city signage, and macro-ocular close-ups captured with clinical precision, the familiar world is rendered unrecognizable. By transforming the human eye into a vast, alien landscape through the lens of ophthalmological equipment, the work challenges our traditional perception of reality. This "Exquisite Corpse" of cinema stitches together the urban, the biological, and the mechanical, creating a fragmented body where sight is disconnected from the mind and movement no longer leads to a destination.

Designed to trigger a physiological response akin to the vertigo of inner-ear syndromes, the film invites a sensory dissolution where the body’s internal compass begins to spin. The low-frequency oscillations of Yair Etziony’s score act as a vibrational glue, resonating within the chest to blur the boundary between visual observation and physical sensation. This is not a work intended for academic translation, but a visceral meditation on instability. It is an invitation to abandon the search for traditional narrative and instead succumb to the tilt of a world losing its footing.