The Emerald Fire

Secret ladder. Borne from firmament. Stone, atonal waters. Chorus of silent hands. A vanishing act. Night is burning. Night is burning white. Flesh, a white fire. Avian. Given. Secret ladder. Mirror, become mirror.

Through a series of chiaroscuro vignettes, the deterioration of an elderly woman's life is observed.

It is nightfall. A hunter lurks in the darkness, wandering further towards the impenetrable. Do the meanings lie in the stream, in the mountains, the stars, or in the death of things?

A Green Ray that never features. Instead, we sense it, seeing beyond our own eyes, beyond the hills, we sense it for an instant. We are plunged into the unknowable, beyond the horizon, beyond seeing altogether. In a single, virtuoso 11 minute take, Barley takes us from lush sunsets. to beyond the green ray, and into the gloaming, into the heavy night's darkness, where we, transfixed, can do nothing but await the impending storm.

A silent short, focusing on the beauty and melancholia of seeing horses in the cold fog, and the metaphors that manifest, as time passes.

Waves run across the surface of the sea. A blanket of fog has descended, shrouding the far side of the water in dark mist. We hear a disturbance in the sea's surface, out of our line of sight. A man staggers into view. He is stranded. Alone. He searches for answers; in the water, in the woodland, in the hills. He finds none. As he wanders deeper into the darkness of the forest, questioning his fate and destiny, he thinks back and reminisces over fragments of his life, and what has been lost. As time passes, the man finds a cabin. He feels uplifted at the thought of shelter from exposure to the elements that he has endured. Inside the shack he encounters a book that he had lost days before. He attempts to find solace in the book's pages; memories of days passed by. It consumes him. He accepts his spiritual end. It comes full circle.

Through a structuralist and simultaneously ambiguous form, the image's reality treads closer to the abstract, leaving the sunset and trees behind. As we enter the image's gloaming, it reveals its true eye: reality's pure haptic energy, where there is nothing but sonorous light, and the dregs of the Unknown.

"Retirement. My retirement. After a long stretch of intense work on a project that I wasn't passionate about, I finally had a little time to make something I truly wanted. Solitude. A subtle use of machinima alongside HD video." Scott Barley

In the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany stands a majestic ginkgo tree. This silent witness has observed over a century the quiet rhythms of transformation across three human lives. At three distinct moments across the 20th and 21st centuries, these people — each carrying their own questions and inner struggles — inevitably find themselves drawn into the presence of this tree, full of mystery and meaning.

This is a beautiful and poetic cinematic ode to our moon. Made primarily from international cinematic archives in combination with literary fragments and original moonlit cinematography filmed across five continents, To the Moon steps lightly through the ages and ideas that people have drawn from the moon to create a meditative work.

A dance between moon and ocean, forests and rivers. A short film by Scott Barley, originally made for a "half moon phase" sequence for Tadhg O'Sullivan's essay film, 'To the Moon' (2020). Shot on iPhone Xs with various rephotographing techniques, combined with superimposed drawings and paintings by Scott Barley. Released as a standalone short film in 2024 as part of 'Short Films (2012–2020): Solo Works by Scott Barley' on Blu-ray.

Upon liminal spheres where dreams are woven, Adrift between stars and the trees, I pass closer to the golden dawn. There’s a warmth beyond the shadow. I feel the aurum under my eyelids, And I hope the birds will sing. Oh, I hope I will hear the birds sing... Perhaps a knowledge that never comes. for David Robert Jones (8th January 1947 - January 10th 2016)

The shadows of screams climb beyond the hills. It has happened before. But this will be the last time. The last few sense it, withdrawing deep into the forest. They cry out into the black, as the shadows pass away, into the ground.

The tension between the natural and industrialised world depicted through abrasive superimpositions.

Above all, an experiment. Two identical films mirror each other. The only thing that differentiates between them is colour and sound, which is simply reversed. Through the use of just colour and sound, each part invokes unique sensations in the viewer. Not a single identifiable object features. Instead, the films focus on repetition, texture, movement and light.

Several figures move through the darkness on a cliff-edge. An inaudible conversation near the brow of the cliff may be the cause for the group to disband. The rest of the film follows the solitary journey of the youngest member of the group, until she rests; where land meets the sea.