Helen Park
Works on Film and Video
2002-2007
The Wheel of Dreams and Prayers (19:40 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° October 2007
Presented in three parts to form a circular narrative, this video-poem is an exploration of the act of dreaming and alternate states of consciousness. The weaving of familiar and unfamiliar images crafts a narrative through dream time, Buddhist temples, and city-spaces. This video is an attempt to articulate through visual language how we channel the transcendent human experience through the secular and the mundane of the everyday world.
The Death of Death (3:20 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° July 2007
A music video for the band Bang Lime. A story of survival: what happens when a bear and a wolf try to suppress their natural urges in order to make it in the human world? This video explores the consequences.
the earth is the heart of a whale (3:20 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° December 2006
A dreamlike, stream-of-consciousness video-poem with a soundtrack set to Tom Waits’ Fawn, heartbeats, and oceans. Footage was culled from 16mm archival footage, video tape of beluga whales, and image overlays constructed in Google Earth.
grow (7:00 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° March 2006
Grow is a meditation on solitude, love, and spirituality. It seeks to express the space between the known and unknown and the passage of time from past into present then into open future. Sound from Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude and ambient works by Aphex Twin. Text from Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters To A Young Poet.”
Dry Drunk Emperor (7:10 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° September 2005
A political music video using stock news footage of Iraq and New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina, Google Earth programming, as well as video tape from anti-war protests in Washington DC. This video was made after the events of Katrina and attempts to draw connections between US domestic and international affairs. Music provided by TV on the Radio. (Featured on Vlogmap.org, Fall 2005).
What Godard Said (5:10 min | mini dv, vhs, 16mm | black & white | sound) ° March 2005
Godard remixed. This piece juxtaposes images from a film shot in the Spring of 1999, which was made as an homage to Jean Luc Godard’s My Life To Live, with a specific scene from that film. An exploration of language and the ‘reading’ of image and montage, based on semiotic theory of Gilles Deleuze. 16mm Directors of Photography: Ming Chen & Francesca Romeo. (Reviewed and featured on DVblog.org, 2006).
Portraits of Brooklyn Youth (30 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° May 2005
Portraits of Brooklyn Youth is a series of projects made with the collaboration of the youth of Bushwick High School. Students were asked to draw a personal map of their neighborhood, then create a "videomap" based on it. These portraits are part of a larger documentary project and interactive DVD exploring issues of identity, belonging, and place.
self-portrait (6:20 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° November 2004
A portrait of myself, which explores the concept of the self as a densely layered entity of time and space, histories and present realities. The images were shot and edited using the ten sign system of semiotician Charles Peirce.
Hassan Wants To Be A Bird (3:30 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° September 2004
Using outtakes from a music video shot a year before and set to a new soundtrack by Rachel’s, this video is a delicate and whimsical video-poem about a man yearning to fly.
Heartstorm (4:55 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° September 2004
A meditation on movement, catharsis, and hurricanes. Images were collected from a computer monitor of palm trees in the turbulence of a hurricane. Music: "Desired Constellation", Bjork.
Untitled (yr million sweetnesses) (2:45 min | digital-8 & mini dv | color | sound) ° July 2004
Combining digital Hi-8 and digitally rendered found footage and set to singer-songwriter Diane Cluck’s “yr million sweetnesses,” this video attempts to express the cathartic release of loss and letting go.
The Utopia Project (20 min | mini dv installation | color | sound) ° April-June 2004
Intended as a series of video installations to be projected onto the streets and architecture of the Financial District, NYC. The placement and arrangement of the projections were designed to create an experiential journey through a dynamic city-space where the virtual and the material interact. Subjects were interviewed on various concepts and perceptions of “Utopia”, place, and social change.
Dreams (5:10 min | mini dv | color | sound) ° December 2003
Music video commissioned by TV on the Radio and Touch & Go Records for the bands premiere full-length album, released Spring 2004. (Featured online at NPR’s All Songs Considered).
i know the rainy days (5:00 min | mini dv & 16mm | color | sound) ° June 2003
A short video-poem using 16mm stock footage of Humpback Whales and a soundtrack from the Cocteau Twins’ I Wear Your Ring.
Rock Star (9:00 min | digital-8 | color | sound) ° September 2002
Part documentary and part visual poetry, this piece attempts to break down and examine the movement and character of the rock & roll performer. Through distilling specific ‘rock’ gestures and movements, beauty is found beneath the surface of the gaze. (Moto Experimental Film & Video Series - Brooklyn, NY, MeDia Co-op digital Film Series - Memphis, TN, Review - FilmThreat.com).
Breezy Point, USA (9:30 min | digital-8 | color | sound) ° June 2002
Through solarized footage and visual abstractions Breezy Point, USA depicts a day at the beach in four parts. Set to a soundtrack which narrates and weaves each segment, this video piece takes seemingly disparate and mundane moments and attempts to transform them into a cohesive whole. (MeDia Co-op digital Film Series - Memphis, TN, eKsperimento Film and Video Festival - Manila, Philippines).
Hope (6:30 min | digital-8 | color | sound) ° June 2002
A short image-based video-poem set to the music of the Dirty Three. HOPE explores the movement of objects in flight: planes and birds, as well as the movement of a specific part of the human body: the hands. Through the deterioration and manipulation of the image, the film seeks to discover a new beauty in the isolated object as well as to create a sense of transcendence from sadness and melancholy. (MeDia Co-op digital Film Series (Grant recipient) - Memphis, TN, eKsperimento Film and Video Festival - Manila, Philippines, Fresh Film at Anthology Film Archives, Ocularis New Filmmakers Series. Reviewed at FilmThreat.com and DVblog.org).