Michael Taylor
Biography
Michael is a London based Filmmaker looking to use digital video as an artistic material as well as a new technology. As a conventional filmmaker, Michael makes inoffensive shorts looking to involve other artists and performers as subjects for collaberative pieces. In 2009 Michael was nominated for a B.O.B. award held at BAFTA for his short film Milk Watch, which was the winner of the New Pathways Film Fund, on behalf of Film London. Aside from the development of this sort of filmmaking, Michael is also involved in the development of video content more rooted in the Art world. Recent projects have included the online visual development of The London based poetry collective, The London Poetry Systems, as well working for Spanish artist Manuel Saiz on his new film TTZZ.
Proposal
It my proposal to develop a piece of digital video which operates as a piece of art and can be experienced by audiences within the traditional realms of a fine art gallery. The work will consist of a flat digitally processed video montage of footage recorded from Skype video calls between the artists involved in the sanctuary project from the UK and from Kenya. The dialogue from these calls will explore ideas of ‘Home, Away, and The Common Ground’, and the final piece of work submitted for gallery exhibition will montage the results of these discussions focusing on the idea of what represents the ’Common Ground’ in terms of artistic inspiration regardless of geographic boundaries. Images will be built up by two hundred looping mini clips from other footage gathered, and shaded to define one overall picture built up from all the other clips. Ten iconic symbols of the common ground will be identified through the pre-production stage of this project, and will be represented in the final video piece which will be timed at a four and a half minute video loop. The audio layer for this video will work in harmony with the video collage, and will support and narrate the ideas that are presented visually.
