University of Bristol

Faculty Member, Drama: Theatre, Film, Television

Senior Research Fellow, AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellow

About

I am interested in and research the subject of Digital Cinematography. Though extremely specific, this is also a way of looking into the development of Digital Technologies and how this tsunami of innovation is affecting everything we know which has previously been framed through writing. True, you're reading this right now - but 'reading' has many forms and it's my conviction (and it powers my research), that the human gaze employs many strategies to examine the world. Chomsky speaks about language and thought and their co-dependent arising, but concurrent with these two is the energy of the gaze which it seems to me is a bi-directional energy. Todays screen and yesterdays cave wall were both mediators of two time periods: 'now' and 'before'. Digital Cinematography because it is a way of enabling images to appear on the screen, is a mediator of both 'now' and 'before'. It seems to me to be a tool, if used as a metaphor, for whatever the human gaze is currently developing as a strategy to define its ontological state.

A current consideration is that digital technologies are simply enhanced analog technologies and that data itself, as defined by mathematics, is simply one definition, potentially of many definitions of 'data'. Nature itself has already defined many ways of encoding data and digitality is simply a first step towards understanding how the world, its image and we ourselves are within a dance of understanding.

For a direct intro to certain technical aspects of my work, here's a link to a recent presentation: http://www.flaxton.btinternet.co.uk/vhwestterryflaxton.htm

Here's a link to a recent symposium I co-organised and presented on Digital Cinematography with all the presentations online:
http://www.flaxton.btinternet.co.uk/KTThelook.htm

Go here for some presentations I organised amidst a major exhibition of my research and artwork held in collaboration with the University of Westminster - the proposition was to examine 'The Idea of Digitality in a Post-Digital Age' - click this link to see the presentations: http://www.flaxton.btinternet.co.uk/KTWest.htm

Go here for a short video representation of a large scale exhibition I had in collaboration with the Universities of Bristol and Westminster at the end of 2010: http://www.visualfields.co.uk/P3exhibition.m4v

The following information describes a fellowship I had between 2007 - 2010 at the University of Bristol and now I have a Knowledge Transfer Fellowship at the University of Bristol. The information beneath is related to that Knowledge Transfer so I'll leave that here for the time being. For information on current thinking have a look at some of my articles and papers.

Though I'm interested in both the technology and aesthetics of developing digitality - I am more concerned with the ontological aspects of this area.

Having been an artist and Cinematographer for 25 years, the aim of my current work is to investigate through practice and critical reflection what is happening to the audience gaze as it shifts from the analogue to the digital and on to higher resolutions. In staging my work I have noticed, reflected and written about a phenomenon that repeatedly occurs: as resolution increases so audience engagement deepens – the measurement of this is the increased time people remain with the works as I increase the resolution of the work. To further my research I am now seeking to investigate the idea that there is a sensibility that deepens audience engagement via the production of the ‘cinematic moment’ and that this moment can be used as a lens for understanding the nature of the impact of High Definition technologies.

For an assessment of my research until February 2009 go to:

http://highdefinition-nomercy.blogspot.com/2009/02/high-definition-imaging-work-so-far.html

Further reports can be found at:

http://highdefinition-nomercy.blogspot.com/

Oral Project: The Verbatim History of HD Aesthetics and Technologies

http://www.flaxton.btinternet.co.uk/indexHDresource.htm

Online Blog:

http://highdefinition-nomercy.blogspot.com/

Contact: Terry.Flaxton@bristol.ac.uk

TERRY FLAXTON

I am currently a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol on a 2 year AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship. Prior to this I have been a cinematographer, educator and artist for 30 years. As a cinematographer I have shot 4 feature films, as an artist my work has been seen at many festivals and galleries around the world. My last exhibition in collaboration with the University of Westmintser featured the outcome of my prior AHRC Creative Research Fellowship and exhibited around 18 high definition works on 12 HD displays, 6 of which were 20 feet by 10 feet in size.

I have an abiding interest in the relationship of technology to art, and the way in which technology re-generates and defines what we identify as art. From this interest proceeds my interest in High Definition Technologies which I first came across in 1989 at a Philips research Lab in Eindhoven whilst engaged as Technical Director of an 18 country, 9 language, interactive live satellite 10 camera shoot. From 1976 to the present day I have been an engaged and productive video artist. My work has been screened on TV, exhibited at festivals worldwide and received a number of awards and nominations.  My work is referenced in academic works about this area.

For the last 20 years I have been a Director of Photography.  I have worked on all film and video formats and have completed 4 feature films (2 High Definition), many short dramas (6 High Definition) and documentaries. As well as maintaining my role as a DP, I have also been adding to my skill set with new digital media skills, from non-linear HD editing, web authoring, HD DVD authoring, HD graphic creation. I have received several writing and production awards, one of which, Skin Deep, was nominated for short list for the Baftas - on this I wrote, lit and co-directed. I have just completed a South West Screen scriptwriting award (Human Remains).

I now feel a growing excitement about the possibilities in the realm of digital art and so feel impelled to deepen my understanding and articulation in the area. In the last several years I have taken some steps towards that: I had a retrospective in Milan in November 2005 and I presented The Dinner Party at the Techne Exhibition in Milan from October 2005 - March 2006. I shall again be presenting The Dinner Party in Monza in November 2006 as part of an artists’ “occupation”. A retrospective of my work is planned at Video Les Beaux Jours in conjunction with the Strasbourg Museum of Modern Art in March 2007. My work is held in the Berlin Kunst Museum and the Arnolfini, and all of my work is now archived in both the AICE in Milan, the Lux Center in London, the Rewind Project at Duncan of Jordanstone, Video Les Beaux Jours, Strasbourg, the University of Melbourne and the British Film and Video Artists Study Collection at Central Saint Martin’s.

I have also been a visiting lecturer at many UK institutions but my more regular stints of teaching have been at the University of Westminster, Bath Spa University, University of the West of England, Goldsmiths and the University of Dundee (where I am an Honorary Lecturer). I am also currently a Visiting Fellow in High Definition Imaging at Bath Spa University.

My latest peer-reviewed article is, ‘Time and Resolution and the High Resolution Image’, to be published in the June 2009 issue of the Journal of Media Practice.
My latest paper, ‘The Concept of Colour Space as addressed from the Practitioners Standpoint’ for the Bristol University’s Colour and the Moving Image Conference, July 2009.
My latest Installation and exhibition, Portraits of the Somerset Carnivals will be at the Somerset Museum of Rural Life, September 2009

NEW WORK CREATED DURING MY FELLOWSHIP

As of July 2009 I have created 18 new High Resolution works. My first series of 4k HD works included both installations and single screen works, and examined the increasingly blurred line between visual art, cinema and sculpture. These were:

Portraits of Glastonbury Tor
Un Tempo, Una Volta
In Re Ansel Adams

Water Table
The Unfurling
Dance Floor

The first three works, (plus Portraits of Cannaregio, Venice, made whilst shooting Un Tempo, Una Volta), were linked by a concern with the nature of subject and place when re-presented on screen and what that mediation might mean. The portraiture subjects were initially captured at the highest possible resolutions, then through being displayed at life size, enabled the audience to examine, in minute detail, the gaze of the subject and consequently reflect on the nature of their own gaze.

The second three, (plus the ACE funded project, In Other People’s Skins), were concerned with the projection of images on real objects, to heighten the disconnect of the uncanny and allowed the audience to participate in a questioning of the representation of the real as well as the veracity of the nature of the real itself.

I am now working to develop further questions around portraiture in relation to the issue of photo-realistic representation and depiction by creating 5 new works:

Portraits of the Somerset Carnivals
Portraits of Bristol Universities’ Centenary
A Moving Portrait of the Poet Elisabeth Beech
A Moving Portrait of the Artist, Charlotte Humpston
A Moving Portrait of the Window Cleaner, Alfred Glasspole

The intention in the first two works is to continue to explore the nuances of contemporary portraiture – these projects differ from the first series by having a wider subject matter. The second two pieces reflect an enquiry into the still-yet-moving-image, by questioning the nature of the gaze of both the subject and the viewer through variations of scale of presentation as well as variations of resolution. (I.e. the steady 10 minute life-sized head-and-shoulder gaze from and towards the poet Elisabeth Beech, is to be displayed on a 42 inch plasma display. Also I will display a photograph taken from a single frame from the image sequence at the same size, side-by-side with the plasma. At the same the image will be displayed on a 20 x 10 foot screen (the cinematic display of a documentary subject), side-by-side with an 8 inch digital photo-display with video capacity. My intention is to promote deeper audience scrutiny and reflection on the form via the juxtaposition of variations of scale of display, resolution and movement.

I am also working on 5 other works which focus on the issue of landscape and the elemental and its representation:

Wave, Wood, Wetlands, Moor
Cathedral Steps
The unfailing Landscape
The Divine Being
The Elemental Wave
Jamie Loves Sarah

These works relate to my concerns around place and the reality of place when depicted on screen. I am constructing works that invite the audience to reflect on the nature of the elemental via its mediation on a 20 x 10 foot screen (in its nature non-elemental), to question the act of the representation of the ‘real’ and its relationship to issues of how its resolution affects how it is received.

Contact Information