Haunted by last season’s video letters
amateur films performing spectrality
by Lisa Stuckey
SYNOPSIS
A filmic archive of family celebrations, birthdays, farewells, journeys, pets, fishing, and so on.
What constitutes the perspective of the film-maker? What eludes her or his sight?
Four stories, all of which are somehow one – of a family in the second half of the twentieth century between Austria, Germany, and the United States.
Utilising the amateur medium Super 8, the work examines how the genre of the family video reflects and idealises the family system.
The audio track contrasts with the beautiful images. The archival material functions as evidence, as well as an objet trouvé; the loss of quality within the resolution through repeated dubbing is an integral part of it. The addition of a commentary over the image track corresponds to the strategies of film essays, associating silent images and memory.
