Catalogue > At random

A B C A M (or A & B Cam) explores a scene from a TV movie where the angles have been superimposed to reveal filmic conventions. It reveals the narrative, angles as well as the adjustments in performance to observe the process in its rawness and mesmerizing predictability. In conventional cinema we are only allowed to see what is presented and manipulated through the process of editing. This is a process as old as the medium itself. It is the essence of cinema. In the case of A B C A M, that process has been subverted and exposed to allow the audience to experience the conventions simultaneously and in real time. The manufactured certainty of the experience is undermined as we are encouraged to review both sides of the narrative, follow the narrative or perhaps, find a new narrative.

Richard Martin (MFA 2013 University of British Columbia) is a media artist living in Vancouver Canada. His short film work has appeared as official selections in prestigious venues such as Berlin International Film Festival, Oberhausen, Rencontres (Paris), Toronto International, EXiS (Korea), Ann Arbor, Athens (Ohio), and many more. He has also worked as a mainstream film and TV director and in that his work straddles conventional and experimental cinema, blending and upending convention with abstract intention, playfulness and occasionally, personal trauma.