‘Coreopsis’ (1998) is an abstract sequence of flickering footage. It's found footage, rekindled and manipulated by O'Neill to create 'something out of nothing'. It conveys simple, visual joy - rather like watching kids draw with sparklers in the night air.
Elsewhere, ‘Let's Make A Sandwich’ (1978) proves that 20 years earlier O'Neill was having fun with 16mm film. A masterclass in ambient editing, O'Neill has spliced together different films to create a morphing sequence.
Narrative
It occasionally relays discernible figurations: hints of conventions like character or narrative; never allowed to dominate the screen.
Rather like film itself, O'Neill seems grounded in stills: photography and drawing - from pictures made in straightforward fashion with a camera and an eye for subject, composition and light to inventive pictures using film stock.
The drawings are telling, too: small in scale they're finite, densely packed frames full of compact and considered scribbles.
The latter hint at the bigger, bolder frames on the top floor: multi-layered menageries, they're intense plays of randomness. Here too, a documentary film (and interactive version) which offers further exposition.
Pat O'Neill: Views From Lookout Mountain is on at the Cornerhouse until Sunday, January 15. Tues - Sat 11am - 6pm, Thurs until 8pm, Sun 2pm - 6pm. Call 0161 200 1500.
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