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In meteorology, the aureole is an atmospheric, optical phenomenon; the visible inner disc of a corona, produced by the diffraction of light from the sun or the moon, bright starlight or planet-light. Aureole brings together unused celestial images from Scott’s earlier film, Diviner (2017), with vocoder-readings from Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), scored by Chu-Li Shewring’s remix of the House track Brighter Days (1992) by Cajmere featuring Dajae. Aureole is a transition between a ‘lost’ chapter from Diviner and Wendy (2022, forthcoming), a film fan-letter to composer Wendy Carlos, whose many interests include solar eclipse photography. Accelerating to a euphoric end, the film is the duration of the longest total solar eclipse, when the moon completely covers the sun.

Frances Scott (b. 1981) is a London-based artist working with moving image. Her work considers the narratives and histories at the periphery of cinematic production and its apparatus, to produce films composed of their metonymic fragments. Her projects are often made in exchange with other specialists, groups and publics, and developed through research using online and physical archives and collections. She associates and composites diverse materials, analogue and digital film media, to create intricate scenarios that are both scripted and improvised. Her film work, informed by this collaborative and research-led process, takes multiple forms, through exhibitions to installations, screenings, events, broadcasts and publications, including recent presentations at: transmediale x CTM, Berlin; 57th New York Film Festival, Lincoln Center, New York; Edge of Frame & Close Up Film Centre, London; Het Bos, Antwerp; The Bower, London; Tate St Ives, Cornwall; Annely Juda Fine Art & The Russian Club, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Yorkshire Sculpture Park & Art Licks; South West Film & Television Archive, Plymouth; and Focal Point Gallery, Southend. Frances Scott was recipient of the Stuart Croft Foundation Moving Image Award (2017), and is currently working on a new film commissioned by TACO!, London for a solo exhibition and publication in 2022.