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You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different

You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different: Films and Videos by Daniel Cockburn is a 2009 Canadian experimental film anthology consisting of a curated programme of eleven short films by video artist Daniel Cockburn.[3]

You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different
Directed byDaniel Cockburn
Written byDaniel Cockburn
Starring
Cinematography
  • Daniel Cockburn
  • Chris MacLean
Edited by
  • Daniel Cockburn
  • Hilda Rasula
Music byAlexander Glenfield[1]
Animation byDaniel Cockburn
Production
company
ZeroFunction Productions
Distributed byVtape
Release date
Running time
55 minutes[2]
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Synopsis

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AUDIT

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An attempt to graph the shape of a human life through animation, with all its coincidences and repetitions.

 
Faith No More in 2009
 
Texts by Ludwig Wittgenstein appear in IdeaL and Metronome.

IdeaL

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Texts by Ludwig Wittgenstein are set against lyrics by the cock rock band Faith No More in a "1-to-1 syllable-to-syllable ratio."

  • 2003, 3 minutes, video

Rocket Man

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A karaoke muzak video version of Elton John / Bernie Taupin's Rocket Man set to clips of fifty years' worth of American space films like Forbidden Planet and Lost in Space.[4]

  • 2001, 5 minutes, video

Metronome

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Main article: Metronome (film)

An artist goes through his day keeping to a steady rhythm. All the while, his voice-over speaks rapidly, discussing mental patterns in life, language, rhythm, as well as determinacy and free will. He talks about Hollywood films that have inspired him, and appropriated clips flow along with the artist's own footage. He wonders how many of his daily thoughts are his own, as opposed to ideas coming from films or indeed the rest of his life experience.

 
Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004

WEAKEND

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Main article: WEAKEND

 
Video and audio of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Adam Gibson from The 6th Day is reworked by a videomaker. The manipulation stops with the arrival of the Sabbath, when the videomaker rests, and the Schwarzenegger of his creation speaks angrily for himself, and the videomaker answers.

  • 2003, 7 minutes, video
    • Tranz Tech Media Art Biennial • FAMEFAME Jury Prize[6]

The Impostor (hello goodbye)

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Main article: The Impostor (hello goodbye)

In a split screen, a man dressed in a black suit and tie speaks directly to the audience, while a black and white home movie is being projected next to him, on the left. He describes a dream in which he was asked to read a eulogy for his father. The man wonders if his words killed his father.

  • 2003, 9 minutes, video; commissioned for The Colin Campbell Sessions and inspired by the makings of video art pioneer Colin Campbell
 

Nocturnal Doubling

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Main article: Nocturnal Doubling

As a metred beat thumps, and a metred line is pulled across the screen, a narrator asserts with certainty that the entire universe expanded to twice its size overnight.

Figure Vs. Ground

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Emily supplied him with a clip of her singing on a boat, which he promptly layered up into a dizzying multi-screen display that buried her "figure" beneath his "ground." Emily dubbed his aggressive material assertions "like being gang raped by video."

Mike Hoolboom[7]

A journey from cacophony to harmony.

  • 2004, 7 minutes, video; a collaboration with fellow video artist Emily Vey Duke, commissioned by the 640 480 video collective for the VS. programme[8]

Stupid Coalescing Becomers

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Main article: Stupid Coalescing Becomers

A "backwards time fantasy"[9] in which a narrator lashes out at the "little opposite rebellions" he sees in which everything is reversed: "paper uncuts itself, cigarettes unsmoke, broken lightbulbs re-form, pills re-gather and in the final image, the artist himself flies out of the frame."[10]

  • 2004, 2 minutes, video

This Thing Is Bigger Than the Both of Us: These Are Facts

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A shadowy figure speaks in a modulated whisper attempting to guess what sort of video artist Matthew C. Brown made for the One Minute Film & Video Festival (This Thing Is Bigger Than the Both of Us: The Secret of String).[5]

  • 2007, 1 minute, video

AUDIT (version 2)

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Another, different attempt to graph the shape of a human life through animation.

  • 2005, 3 minutes, Super 8 with audio CD
 
Daniel Cockburn

Genre and themes

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The guide for the 2011 Impakt Festival suggests Daniel Cockburn's films are found at the intersection of avant-garde and narrative cinema, combining innovative storytelling strategies and structuralist experimentation, breaking open "day-to-day reality to reveal the strange codes beneath."

Self-reflexive to the point of neurosis, Cockburn is fascinated with how moving images can illuminate the structures and rhythms of our lives; he is forever looking for hidden meaning in randomness and patterns in chaos.[11]

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In 2009, Cockburn was invited to a six-month fellowship in Berlin (DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program),[12] where he began showing a curated programme of his films and videos. An anthology film tour was coordinated by curator Jon Davies (Pleasure Dome) with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.[13]

Cockburn returned to Toronto toward the end of the year with a revised programme which also saw the launch a publication about his work.[5] The catalogue, also titled You Are in a Maze of Twisty Little Passages all Different, was edited by Daniel Cockburn and Jon Davies, and included five commissioned essays by video artists Steve Reinke and Emily Vey Duke, author Sheila Heti, filmmaker Spencer Parsons, and theoretical physicist Lee Smolin.[5][13]

Release and reception

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The final version of You Are in a Maze of Twisty Little Passages all Different was screened in Toronto on 5 December 2009. In addition to the eleven shorts which form the core of the standard programme, the Pleasure Dome screening included The Chinese Room (a ten-minute work-in-progress excerpt from Cockburn's upcoming feature, You Are Here) and Matthew C. Brown's This Thing Is Bigger Than The Both Of Us: The Secret Of String.[5] The 2011 Impakt Festival version switches The Chinese Room with Material (2011), the short Cockburn made for the National Parks Project.[11]

Home media

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A 55-minute DVD (for exhibitions and educational institutions) of the definitive (Toronto) version of the anthology film was released in 2009.[13]

Critical response

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Norman Wilner wrote a brief retrospective review of Cockburn's work in advance of the Pleasure Dome event in Toronto:

Cockburn's work is strange and recursive and curious and enthralling, and sometimes all at once. In works like Metronome and The Impostor (hello goodbye), he considers life, death and dreams - and dreams about death - with a childlike fascination and an adult's sense of gravity. He'll ponder the collective illusion of time in Stupid Coalescing Becomers, or investigate his suspicion that everything in the universe has doubled in size overnight in the aptly titled Nocturnal Doubling. Calmly offering philosophical and metaphysical insights on the audio track, while evidence of his thesis plays out on the screen, he's both prankster and serious inquisitor; there's no way anything he's talking about is even plausible, let alone probable, but he's going to explore the possibilities as if it were.[4]

References

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  1. ^ "The Impostor (hello goodbye)". Vtape. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  2. ^ "You Are In A Maze Of Twisty Little Passages, All Different: Films and Videos by Daniel Cockburn". vtape.org. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  3. ^ Wilner, Norman (11 September 2010). "Tracy Wright's fine, final performance". Now. Retrieved 6 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b Wilner, Norman (4 December 2009). "Rocket man, space movies: Daniel Cockburn puts space movies in the universe of post-modern cultural collage". Now. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "You Are In A Maze Of Twisty Little Passages, All Different: Daniel Cockburn In Person Screening & Catalogue Launch". pdome.org. Pleasure Dome. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  6. ^ a b c "Daniel Cockburn". Vtape. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  7. ^ Hoolboom, Mike (July 2013). "All in the Family by Mike Hoolboom". Retrieved 12 October 2019.
  8. ^ "Figure vs. Ground (with Emily Vey Duke)". ZeroFunction. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  9. ^ Hoolboom, Mike (ed. and interviewer) (2008). "Daniel Cockburn: Smartbomb". Practical Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists (1st ed.). Toronto: Coach House Books. pp. 7–20. ISBN 9781770561816. Retrieved 25 September 2019. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  10. ^ Hoolboom, Mike (1 November 2005). "Experimental: Daniel Cockburn-Preliminary Notes". Point of View Magazine (60 [Winter 2005]). Retrieved 23 September 2019.
  11. ^ a b The Right to Know: Impakt Festival, 2-6 November 2011, Utrecht (PDF). Utrecht. 2011. p. 9. Retrieved 26 July 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  12. ^ Ortega de Mon, Marcos (28 September 2009). "Directors Lounge: Daniel Cockburn". Experimental Cinema. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  13. ^ a b c "You Are In A Maze Of Twisty Little Passages, All Different: Films and Videos by Daniel Cockburn". Vtape. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
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