Visual arts Feature of the Month
Matt Hulse
| Matt Hulse's installation The Harrachov Exchange (detailed below) was supported by a Scottish Arts Council / Scottish Screen Artist’s Film and Video Award. |
Matt Hulse's work is characterised by surreal humour, timeless imagery, non-verbal / visual storytelling and rich, visceral soundtracks. Hulse trained in Fine Art at Reading University & Electronic Imaging at Duncan Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee.
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He chooses a diversity of working methods over academic specialisation. His free-spirited, interdisciplinary and openly collaborative practice has inspired many cross-platform projects, combining moving image and sound in surprising ways. Hulse's work is a challenge to categorise. It refuses to sit quietly within the definitions prescribed by the professional art world and / or film industry. |
One can however spot an inimitable style and a distinct, subversive voice running throughout, whether it be articulated in the form of a short film, an audio programme, a still photograph, a piece of music, a postcard or a large scale collaborative installation.
He actively harnesses happenstance and chance as triggers for creativity. He allows the structure, duration, content and ‘meaning’ of the work to evolve as naturally as possible, if necessary nurturing an idea over many years.
The internationally acclaimed installation The Harrachov Exchange (2006) exemplifies his open-ended, exploratory approach.
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The project evolved from a trip made in 2002 to the Czech Republic with Dutch film maker Joost van Veen. The pair set themselves a challenge - to shoot an action film, but one devoid of human life. |
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‘We chanced upon a found object – a detached wheel - and shot tests on 8mm and 16mm - some live action, some stop-frame. We cut together an intriguing little film of the wheel on a mysterious journey. The wheel expressed a distinctly forlorn character – we were inspired by its simple power.’
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‘By 2005 we secured funding to expand upon the original idea. We invited film maker Ben Rivers to get involved. We then sourced a multitude of additional objects, improvising with and exploring the characteristics of each. Shooting on location in France, Snowdonia and Germany, we filmed, and animated, each objects’ unique articulations and recorded the sounds they made.’ |
'From this material we completed a short film, Harrachov, in which the objects seem drawn together by an unseen force, towards an uncertain end, in a dark, forbidding place … a black cinema screen. A powerful, dissonant, plaintive and eerie chorus emerges from the void, a kind of ‘musique concrete’, orchestrated by the unseen object ensemble.’
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We also invited artist Guy Bishop to come on board, in order to build a free-standing kinetic sculpture from the objects used in the film. We wanted the cast to be brought to life, to be seen ‘in the flesh’, beyond the film itself. Guy evolved the design of the sculpture whilst we were still shooting and editing. Mediation of sound and image is a very fluid, speedy process and sometimes we were out of step with the orderly procedures demanded of 3D design. |
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‘This unusual cross-fertilisation between 2D and 3D was a learning experience. The short film and the sculpture were designed so that they could work as ‘stand alone’ pieces. The short film has had a healthy life on the film festival circuit – with several awards. The depth, complexity and power of the collaborative work is however only fully realised when the sculpture and short film are exhibited together in installation. The viewer becomes an active participant, forming two-way connections between the 2D and 3D manifestations of the work, uncertain perhaps as to which came first – the film, or the sculpture.’
The Harrachov Exchange was supported by a Scottish Arts Council / Scottish Screen Artist’s Film and Video Award along with co-production funding from The Netherlands. The show at Dilston Grove was supported by Arts Council England. |
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A limited edition artist multiple DVD package (100 copies) is available . It includes the award-winning short film Harrachov, documentation of the film installation, original artwork, stills and sketches. Also included is an audio CD with 12 re-mixes of the Harrachov soundtrack by 6 artists from the UK and 6 from The Netherlands.
For more information and images, and to buy the DVD, visit the Harrachov Exchange website.
Matt Hulse is currently fund-raising for his feature film, Dummy Jim (about a deaf man who cycled to the Arctic Circle in 1951) and encourages you to support his work directly by visiting the alt-W funded web site.
Hulse has recently been commissioned to create a Pedal Powered Time Machine for The Dick Institute in Kilmarnock, inspired by pneumatic tyre inventor John Boyd Dunlop, in collaboration with Guy Bishop & Alan Brown'.
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