Greg Pope’s Light Trap is a performance for four prepared 16mm projectors. Something of a “live punk homage” to Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone, the work is a voluminous and spatial sound/light sculpture, performed live and in constant flux by factors both random and controlled. Without a screen, seating, or a traditional beginning and end, Light Trap explores the raw elements of cinema: the projector, the film material, the darkened room and synchronized sound.
The imagery in Light Trap begins with loops of completely black film, a dark room filled with haze, and only the hum of the projectors’ motors. Slowly, the emulsion is whittled away on each loop with sandpaper and an array of hand tools, allowing bursts and streams of light to pierce through the darkness. Synchronous to the unfolding cascade of light emanating into the room, the aberrations on the film loops create pops, cracks, and hisses.This constant, reductive physical process applied to the surface of the film loops results in a slow transformation of the physical space; out of aural and visual darkness builds a cacophonous crescendo of sound and light. Performed with Andrew Lampert, Bradley Eros and others.
After dabbling in punk rock bands and absurdist performance, Greg Pope founded Brighton based Super-8 film collective Situation Cinema (1986-88). Loophole Cinema was the next venture (London 1989 -99), using 16mm multi-projection and screen technology to create events staged at festivals and industrial spaces across europe. In 1996 Pope co-produced the International Symposium of Shadows in London.Working collaboratively and individually, Pope has made video installations, live art pieces and single screen film works since 1996. His work has been shown at Tate Modern, Rotterdam Film Festival, Gugenheim, London Film Festival and Kill Your Timid Notion festival ( Scotland ) and Images festival, Toronto. He currently lives in Norway in a small wooden house and is active with Atopia, an artists’ film and video collective in Oslo.
For more Greg Pope films at Anthology Film Archives click here.
Barry Weisblat was born in 1975 in Brooklyn. He is a sound artist and electronic instrument builder who extensively experiments with electro-magnetic devices, solar technology, homemade and modified circuits for application in sound generation/manipulation, audio engineering and photography. Weisblat has collaborated with Margarida Garcia, Tower Recordings, Mattin, Tim Barnes and Tetuzi Akiyama, and has built instruments for Peter Kowald, Toshio Kajiwara, Manuel Mota and Matt Valentine. He has sound engineered for Erstwhile Records, Dean Roberts and Jon Gibson. Selected recordings include: 2003 ‘Velatropa 24.3′, Allegorical Power Series, Issue 5, December 2003.