-stat.ic transfers: Ian Helliwell/Stom Sogo

Sogo: ‘I think that showing Super8 film in the exact same way but transferred to video doesn’t work, or if the old piece is not talking to the audience in this present time, it is better to make them fresh by cutting a bit. Almost every work I have made has its various versions, in a similar way to how a musician makes many different cuts or mixes of one song. In the earlier works, I’ve created certain techniques, like setting up a fan with colour gels in front of a projector, or use strobe light in filming the images in order to make flickering images. This only to add the feeling I wanted to express to the subjects of the films.’Helliwell’s techniques include hand painting, bleaching, scratching and stopmotion animation. This handson method of working is also applied to his music, particularly in the field of electronics. Many of the major themes in Helliwell’s work and lifestyle, including electronics, abstract film, sound and light, expanded cinema, collecting and remodelling are encapsulated in his instrument The Megatherm. He bought the redundant 1950s hospital apparatus at a carboot sale for just a few pounds, installed modified sound circuitry and light sensors and made a special abstract Super8 film to project directly onto it; the Megatherm reacts to the light intensity in the film, effectively playing the soundtrack by itself.