[ISEA2002] Artists Statement: Rob Flint & Phil Durrant – Blip Kino

Artists Statement

‘Blip Kino’ is a live performance from the archive. Unrecognised fragments of film – those moments of depersonalised establishing shots where the screen is uninhabited are separated from their place in the original narrative and brought together for use as the central, rather than marginal, content of a new kind of live cinema – reinvented for an era of random access memory. scopac vs. sowari is a project that combines the live image manipulation of Rob Flint (scopac) with the electronic sound performance of Phil Durrant (sowari). Two artists – one generating sound, the other a video image – perform at a table with computers, a sound system, and a large video screen. Reversing the usual relationship of musician accompanying an existing film, the video becomes a malleable tool, responding to the generated sounds in a dynamic and spontaneous way. The performance itself is unique, unrepeatable. scopac vs. sowad exploit and enjoy the spontaneous potential of new random access media, but this is an exercise in human interaction as much as new technologies. Resisting the trend for audiovisual spectacle, they attempt to demonstrate the infinite range of textures present in even very limited means. Blip Kino uses the video image less as a representational form, than an means of dynamic collaboration between sight and sound. scopac vs. sowari take video as something that is neither cinema nor television, but is capable of reproducing and substituting for both. We enjoy the paradox of a live, improvised unique performance in an era of perfect copies. We like to exploit the faults, noise and marginalia of cinema and TV, and to address those media (through performance) as kinds of experience, as well as different kinds of form or content.

  • Rob Flint, UK weareprimary.org/people/rob-flint/
  • Phil Durrant, UK. Born 1957; software synth/sampler, live electronics and acoustic violin. Phil Durrant studied classical violin and piano at the London College Of Music. Since 1977 he has been a freelance musician, improviser and composer. He has performed at festivals all over Europe, U.S.A and Canada and has had his music broadcast on radio and television in many countries. [source: efi.group.shef.ac.uk/musician/mdurrant.html]