Entirely hand-processed and hand-painted, “Site Visit” visually evokes a series of fantasy maps and the imaginary “sites” visited by following the paths laid out. Metaphorically the process of the film depicts the impossibility of concretely mapping disease in the human body, especially the emotional consequences. The degradation of the emulsion through bleaching is parallel to the slow degradation that occurs in the body stricken with cancer.
Filter Films
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A hand-processed and optically printed film. I manipulate the film process to disrupt viewing expectations on a textual and aesthetic level. This re-positions the subject and discourse of gender ambiguity available in the gaze. Specifically, I attempt to interrupt and re-shape the triadic gaze operating between the subject, viewer and filmic apparatus. By shifting the discourse of the gaze, the film implicates viewers in the gazes between the lesbian filmmaker and her self-identified butch subjects. “Post riot-grrl ethos informed a number of the best works… [including] Maïa Cybelle Carpenter’s hand-processed vision of lesbians and machines, ‘The Shape of the Gaze.’” – Ed Halter, Indie Wire (Dec. 4, 2000) “In Carpenter’s drily witty ‘The Shape of the Gaze,’ butch women stare assertively at the camera, intercut with tools and machine parts.” – Fred Camper, Chicago Reader (Sept. 8, 2000)
Shape of the Gaze, The
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Optically printed, hand-processed and painted, this film records the space of light. It attempts to remove the Form of abstraction from Matter and thus place the viewer in a virtual temporo-space. The last minute of the film is comprised of clear leader. After this, the projector remains running with no film passing through its gate for 30-60 seconds. This flickering white light completes the film’s projection. Note: Running time ranges from 6 to 8 minutes; the exact running time will depend on how long the projector is left running at the end.
Sans Titre
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A sexually explicit experimental video. The goal of this work was to create an anti-pornographic work that celebrated marginal sexualities. The subject ignores the viewers’ participation in her pleasure, creating a hermetically sealed auto-erotic experience.
Clamp
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Awash in sumptuous colour, a herd of buffalo desperately try to hold on as they struggle to cross the film frame.
buffalo lifts
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How-to-dance-ska in one easy lesson or three. Best Animation, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2003
Rude Roll
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In 1873, Eadweard Muybridge, commonly referred to as “the father of the motion picture,” succeeded in photographically freezing a horse mid-gallop. One year later, he shot and killed his wife’s lover. Using an evocative collection of found footage and sounds, Wilson channels the voice of Flora Muybridge, imagining her response to her husband’s act and subsequent acquittal at trial.
Flora’s Film
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An exaltation of the everyday, made using the photogram technique of exposing objects directly onto film; Wire mesh, fibrefill, salt, paper, steel wool, cherry blossoms, grease, spit, bubble wrap, tea leaves, washer rings and a drain-stopper chain are transformed in the process.
Jetsam
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“Post mark lick” is “a love-song to the pre-digital age of postal correspondence and photogram animation” (Images Festival, 2003). It explores the materiality of the postage stamp and the fleeting narratives of letters and postcards.
Post mark lick
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“A mind-expanding image jam that uses decades’ worth of found footage. The visuals of croaking frogs, 1950s’ housewives, fake suns and much more are structured around a mystical mandala and perfectly set to a Bollywood beat.” – Images Festival, 2004 “A punchy, satirical ride that mixes food, sex and violence in perverse Kuleshevian suggestions, all with great comedic timing. A great example of film giving birth to itself in hybrid, mutated forms.” – Genevieve Yue, What the Eye Sees, 2003 Awards: Hessian Film Prize for Best Short Film, 2003; Honourable Mention, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2004
To the Happy Few
