Collaboration with the Earth

16mm film transferred to digital video // 1 minute & 12 seconds with text, 42 seconds without text, 2011
version with titles // version without titles

Collaboration with the Earth (no titles)

I love handmade film processes, also called direct animation, cameraless filmmaking, and handpainted filmmaking. These techniques involve directly manipulating the surface of film with paint, scratching, adhering things to it or distressing the film in some way. During the summer of 2011, I created Collaboration with the Earth, which involved cutting a 1970s era 16mm moving-picture advertisement for General Electric into two-second strips, burying each strip in the ground, and then unearthing one strip of film each day for twenty days. I pieced the film back together so viewers could witness the gradual decay of the image and sound in the film. The result is an array of brightly colored abstract compositions borne of my collaboration with dirt, worms, water, and other earthly forces.

still images from the film

Collaboration with the Earth still image

documentation of the process of making the film
Collaboration with the Earth process documentation
Collaboration with the Earth process documentation
Julie Perini harvesting film for Collaboration with the Earth
Collaboration with the Earth process documentation

support provided by:
Byrdcliffe Artist Colony, funded by a New York State Council on the Arts fellowship

Julie Perini is a filmmaker and artist in Portland, Oregon.