Contemplating Acid Renaissance short video pieces

I am once again pondering if/how to make some short video pieces for my Acid Renaissance series.

I did do a very short, static camera Children of Winter clip back at the start of the series in 2019, and while I haven’t done anything in that medium since, it has remained at the back of my mind as a possibility.

The desire comes from the fact that I view a lot of the artwork in the series, especially the photographic work, as captured moments from longer sequences.

One of the inspirations behind that was the look and feel of theatrical stage photography. However for the Acid Renaissance video work I want to move some of the scenes outside into some dreamlike/psychedelic version of the English landscape, drawing on my love of Derek Jarman’s work as well visual ideas from the likes of Peter Greenaway, the short films of Bertrand Mandico, and others.

Video work — especially video work outside — brings in a raft of additional logistical complications, not least because I can’t drive, but I hope to find ways to do it anyway.

Another challenge will be to film a dreamlike vision of the English countryside without falling into the bucolic, which means that it has to instead heavily emphasise the weird, the eerie, and the psychedelic, and avoid the twee conservative stylings of Deep England.

I don’t envisage the video pieces as relying on much narrative structure or story, although I imagine some could be constructed by a person watching them. Life-models will become actors (by coincidence some of my regular life-models already have acting experience) and, if I’m successful, the characters of Acid Renaissance will briefly come alive.