The MA Film Practice (Online) course at Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) is unveiling its talent to the public as graduates prepare to screen their work at the Palace Court Theatre on Thursday 16 October.
Aspect Ratio is a screening event of MA Film Practice (Online) graduate work, with its first-ever iteration, titled Moving Images, showcasing films from eight international graduates.
Dr Karen Cunningham, course leader on MA Film Practice (Online) explains:
“The screening encompasses a diversity of short films including narrative fiction, biography, and artists moving image which have been made by students throughout the UK and around the world, including Italy, Taiwan, USA and Cornwall.”
Artist and graduate filmmaker Patricia Wilson Smith will also be showing her abstract three-channel moving-image work, Yn Chy, in the Club Room at the Palace Court.
“I’m really pleased to be able to screen my work as I intended it,” says Patricia, “on three separate but adjacent screens, for an audience that includes filmmakers, students and the general public.
“It’s a valuable opportunity to see how it is received, and hopefully, hear people’s reactions and impressions."
Patricia explains that Yn Chy is screened on three monitors, arranged to surround the viewer on three sides. Each screen plays different images, so that members of the audience may find themselves turning to watch another screen at times.
“The films are a series of long takes: this creates a demand on the viewer because we are so used to rapid-moving images, action and fast-paced scenes.
“There’s been a fair bit of literature comparing the immersive gallery viewing experience with the cinema environment, and it usually comes down in favour of cinema. Understandably, because cinema-viewing is comfortable, and sedentary, and tells us a story.
“But now we’re used to viewing films on all kinds of devices: our attention spans are shorter, we switch rapidly from one topic to another in response to the algorithms controlling our feeds, and – this is what interests me – do we really look any more? Do we ‘notice'?”
Aspect Ratio: Moving Image will take place at the Palace Court Theatre, Bournemouth, on Thursday 16 October.
