New Doc Lenses
Notes from April 1, 2024 [Letters from the Earth]; a sci-fi sensory ethnography in three acts. 2014. TRT 11:19
Meditations on the world and archive during the post-apocalyptic period in the future. I’m playing with ideas of archive and the Lefevbrian lens of viewing the city and everyday experience. My piece is a sensory ethnography that seeks to obfuscate concepts of autobiography and authorship– in that I use some video from my own ‘archive’ mixed in with clips from the Prelinger archive. As to whether or not what I am saying is true, I argue this doens’t matter, as it is how I interpret the world that is most important.
It is also a meditation on science fiction and anthropology; that is to say, I wanted to think about what it would be like if we were living on a spaceship or if the world had ended, and we tried to remember a breeze, a sunset, or the sound of the ocean. I am looking at how we remember, as to remember is to create and vice versa. I was thinking about Chris Marker and Mike Kelley. I was also thinking about memory and remnants of the cold war, and relating it to today. I am creating the soundtrack and using bits of narration that describe some of the images, graciously read by Amy Shand! Also, my fiancee Ivy and our dog Hattie are briefly featured. Includes part of Michael Snow’s La Region Centrale (1971). Music by Sonny and Linda Sharrock, Boards of Canada, and myself.
**Note: this only includes my contribution to the project, but overall concept was created by Tiffany Keough, Amy Shand, Dannielle Thomas and Joe Steele for a class called Documentary Practice and Emerging Media in the School of Media Studies at the New School for Public Engagement in NYC.** For the rest of the project, go here
Demo Reel (2004-2010)
This contains a trailer for my film ‘Franklin Park/Margins’ 2004/05, an excerpt of Franklin Park Two 2009/10, and a coda at the end which contains a sample from Bernadette Corporation’s film Get Rid of Yourself (EAI, 2003, 61 min, color, sound) and a video from twitter of the Hamburg Riots Dec. 21, 2013 by RiotTV Berlin. Accessed 12/23/2013
Music on the last clip by Kevin Drumm, Friend and Lover, and Herman’s Hermits. Franklin Park Margins Trailer contains a sample of Art Ensemble of Chicago’s ‘Fanfare for the Warriors’, Atlantic 1973, LP, sound.
All films written, produced, directed and edited by Joe Steele
Copyright 2013.