Dispatches #3: Jonathan Gillie's Recommendations
A free post with a selection of recommended viewing and listening from animator Jonathan Gillie.
In this free ‘Dispatches’ post, animator Jon Gillie selects a trove of links to investigate and enjoy. Catch up with Jon’s recent interview here on Edge of Frame - essential reading for anyone with an interest in abstraction and the limits of perception, not to mention his wonderful animation works themselves. And at the bottom of this post is also a video of Jon’s recent masterclass for Punto y Raya academy, which is really worth a watch.
But first we have Jon’s recommendations; from a lecture on theories of consciousness to a frankly terrifying Delia Derbyshire radio broadcast, there’s plenty here to keep your mind stimulated…
Jonathan Gillie’s Recommendations
Music: Delia Derbyshire and Barry Bermange, Dreams
JG: I love this piece of music, the soundscape is beautiful and I could listen to the the clipped English accents and ambience of the tape recordings all day long. This piece was the initial inspiration behind my use of AI image to text and text to voiceover experiments. The way they describe dream states reminds of the 'uncanny valley' we experience when something relates to reality but isn't fully part of it.
Website: projection-monitor.tumblr.com
JG: A collection of beautiful and otherworldly architectural spaces in Second Life circa 2013.
Lecture: Donald Hoffman, Consciousness and its Physical Headset
JG: Donald Hoffman is a Cognitive Scientist who is attempting to describe consciousness in a mathematically verifiable way. In this short lecture he discusses his 'headset' theory and the structures that lie beyond spacetime. He is a great communicator around this complex subject which never ceases to inspire me.
Video Art - Richard Serra and Nancy Holt, Boomerang
JG: This work from 1974 is such great illustration of how easy it can be to shift your perception of reality and it's executed in such a simple and elegant way. I've been thinking about it in relation to my recent practice, is there a way to strip back the constituent parts of the work and streamline the meaning?
Artist: Paul Mpagi Sepuya
JG: I'm really enjoying the work of Paul Mpagi Sepuya just now, his Exposure exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary was excellent - technically brilliant, tender and with a really playful approach to the body, space and surface.
Film: Albert Serra, Pacifiction
JG: Probably the best film I saw last year, a heady combination of political intrigue, atomic paranoia and Tahitian nightlife.
Thanks to Jon for his fantastic selection! I’m just adding this video of his Punto y Raya masterclass here on the end - it’s a really great talk about his work and process. Do check out the plethora of other Punto y Raya talks online too, via their youtube channel.
And… one final vid, just because its always nice to see it (and hear it) … here’s Bruce Conner’s 1981 film Mea Culpa which Jon cites in his Edge of Frame interview as being a big influence on his work. The film is one of two short films Conner made with music from Brian Eno and David Byrne's collaborative album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
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