Mylar is...
an extraordinarily strong polyester film-like substance developed in the early 1950s. In the 1960s cellophane gave way to Mylar with its superior strength, heat resistance, and excellent insulating properties... Mylar created new markets in magnetic audio and video tape, capacitor dielectrics, packaging and batteries. By the 1970s, Mylar had become the industry's best-selling film.
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| Sun warping time/space |
SO MAE USED MYLAR to make our own "films": Below are links to view the four mylar films (moving image video poems) produced within our two days of experimentation with this substance. There seemed something magical about this shimmering surface, drifting the air currents like cloth, now solid, now diaphanous--and sometimes recalling textbook illustrations of how matter warps the fabric of time and space.
THE MYLAR EPISODES: 4 FILMS
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| Pianta, in Fabric of the Universe |
MYLAR I: Fabric of the Universe
click to view:
It is the silent, smiling faces that speak first, as they drift through the fluttering, crackling tunnel-- as though it whispers, as though it has breath-- the faces evoking the luminosity of children's faces as they make first contact with something magical. Fabric of the Universe can be viewed as an inquiring study of the qualities of light and texture evoked by the mylar, as well as those of movement, form, emotion, mind and spirit.
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| Yulia White, in Opening the Mylar... |
MYLAR II: Opening the Mylar: A Meditation on Reflected Light
This film chronicles opening the mylar, unrolling it from its 10' tall roll. Again, the camera observes, the mover artists move, the editor experiments with criss crossing and stacking images, and the light shimmers on.
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| Unknown Alien Entity, from COVER |
MYLAR III: COVER
Click here to view
Featuring a music track from the Dutch group, "Audiotransparent," COVER brings forward the alien-entity possibilities of the mylar. The camera's eye contemplates the movements of a metallic creature, graceful and glittering, creating its own haunting dance. Meanwhile, quantum-size glimpses of another reality flicker through, like the last traces of a dimension poignantly similar to our own.
Featuring a music track from the Dutch group, "Audiotransparent," COVER brings forward the alien-entity possibilities of the mylar. The camera's eye contemplates the movements of a metallic creature, graceful and glittering, creating its own haunting dance. Meanwhile, quantum-size glimpses of another reality flicker through, like the last traces of a dimension poignantly similar to our own.
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| Pianta, left & Yulia White, right in Butoh Fall |
Click to view
Butoh is an avant garde improvisation dance / performance art that had its origins in Japan in the 1960's. It strives to allow the body to "speak" for itself, through unconscious movement. Originally, it sought to reveal beauty in the dark, the misshapen, the primitive, and the unknown or subconscious realms of the human psyche. Butoh Fall pays homage to this unconventional form through the intensity of the two movers, their anesthetized tempos, frozen faces, the downward pull of body shapes and gestures, the threatening sound track. Toward its end, the film offers a last interaction between the detached couple, one of them striking the floor loudly with her legs again and again, as if to awaken the other, or to shake her out of her trance. Is there light at the end of this tunnel?
