Cowfish

The eclipse of/on an eggshell.

An encounter at Jardim Zoológico de Lisboa shot in 16mm by JMG+PP.

An elephant’s proboscis in action.

A rite of passage.

Fried eggs as a cosmic event.

Short silent film.

A silent 16mm film vertical portrait on sleeping flamingos.

A reconstruction of Arquimendes incendiary mirror system, burning the film emulsion by the overexposure of mirror reflections on a screen.

16mm film, colour, no sound, 2'47" Produced by Brodbeck Foundation, Catania, Italy

Short film by João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, filmed at Lohmuehle Leustetten.

16mm film installation, 5 projections composition, 120 meters of silent 16mm color film

35mm film transferred to 16mm, colour, no sound, 2'42"

João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva have produced a series of silent films in 16 mm and 35 mm that, scientifically yet with a touch of irony, present small physical actions and particular optical phenomena. Their inventories of nature and their perspective respond to a physical world that is visible and yet invisible, where the concrete is always presented as something concealed. Something that the filmmakers call “abyssology, a transitory science of the indiscernible”. The simple compositions and the tricks they adopt, such as the use of slow motion or superimposed images, are reminiscent of the silent films of the early days of cinema and the chronophotography of Étienne-Jules Marey.

“Wheels” is a film about relative motion as described by Descartes: if 2 objects are moving in the same direction and speed they seem to be still between each other. Inspired by Duchampian tradition, Pedro and João filmed a short chronicle of curved means of transportation in the tropics. Overlaying directly on the negative (camera editing) the feat of paradoxically freezing a moving bicycle wheel, a car wheel and anamorphic depiction of tire, João and Pedro constate that for that to happen everything else must be perceived as a gyroscope.

The head of a turtle coming out of her shell. The slow motion provides for bizarre analogies: a child coming out of her mother’s wombs, an alien birth, as if you could only speak of an absolute stranger being born. 16mm film, colour, no sound, 2'40" Produced by Frac Île-de-France/Le Plateau, Paris

A profile portrait on a “nicotine dream” travels along with the frame of the camera while everything else is moving. The hair fashions a trimmed motive of a pipe, or is it Nike’s logo? the immobile head puffs away the smoke from a lit cigarette butt. 16mm film, colour, no sound, 2'29" Produced by Fondazione HangarBicocca, Milan.