Colin Clark

Edison and Lumiere footage of the Serpentine Dance, created by Loïe Fuller, is reworked to follow the poetic interpretations of several artists who experienced Fuller’s performances in person: texts of Mallarmé, lithographs of Toulouse-Lautrec, sketches of Whistler, and a futurist manifesto on dance by Marinetti.

"The film was made using principles derived from Stephen Wolfram’s work on cellular automata (A New Kind of Science) to determine the content or colour of the shots, their duration, and the time of their appearance: the palette of effects, and their rhythmical development (from the simple alternations with which the film begins to the complex dynamic structures of its later parts),is entirely the result of computational processes that model natural events. John Cage instructed us that art should imitate nature in its manner of operation; I have tried to take the lesson. The music was composed by Colin Clark, using related principles".

“her carnal longings” is an audiovisual meditation on the human body and the film medium at a time when the futures of both are in question. Using the “emulsion lift” technique on 16mm film, sections of emulsion were lifted off, torn up or smudged, and then re-adhered. In combination with digital video technology, Pruska-Oldenhof creates an intricate analogue-digital weave that explores both the body’s and the film’s surface. The film emulsion wrinkles, rips and dissolves - reminding us that it, like human flesh, is fragile and perishable.