excerpt:

“4-frame movie #1”

running time: 2min 30sec
original format: 16mm film
projection format: 16mm film with 35mm slide projectors
color, sound

 

 

The ‘4-frame-movie’ series is an on-going interdisciplinary moving-image installation which is another exploration of the moving image structure. I shot footage on 16mm film, which I then went frame by frame to re-animate the images and run them simultaneously on two slide projectors with a dissolve unit; they appear, overlap, and then disappear at a fixed pace with each click of the slide projectors. 

The format of the ‘4-frame-movie’ series was influenced by the four-panel political comic strips I consumed as a child in the 1970’s and 80’s.   Since my mother did not allow me to read any comic books when I was growing up, the comic strips published in the daily newspapers were the only kind of cartoon that I had access to. Because they covered current events in a covert manner–Korea was under the rule of a military government at the time–the cartoons were often too complicated for me to comprehend.  Since I believed all comics were meant to be funny, they felt like puzzles where I had to figure out the punchline. Even though they rarely made me laugh, I felt like an adult waiting for the newspaper to be delivered every day.

As its title says, an individual frame of the ‘4-frame-movie’ series  is composed of four frames of 16mm film. These four-framed static images crossfade and create unexpected optical dynamics, which makes visible this invisible process of time.