High Definition video installation.
F.Scott Fitzgerald said, 'The true mark of intelligence is the ability to hold two apparently opposing ideas in the mind simultaneously.
This video installation 'Flatlanders' was originally made for a debate in Guildford cathedral led by Jim al khalili. When I heard that scientists were doing an experiment to try and recreate the conditions that were there at the beginning of the universe at CERN, I thought that it would be like the Bruegel painting, 'The Fall Of Icarus', where the ploughman continues ploughing the field as Icarus falls from the sky. If the same event took place today, we would probably not take any notice either.
The final work depicts a woman riding on a swing carrying perfectly balanced scales while Bruegel-like figures walk on a tea cup. This Icarus who rises and falls can be seen as a reflection of the paradoxical nature of advanced science.
Flatlanders incorporates sounds recorded by scientists at CERN (in the Infusion Pump Cooling Station), and the sound of Icarus' wings beating was created with help from the musician Milton Mermikides.
This work was shown at The New Future exhibition at the District of Columbia Arts Center gallery with two other artists.
16 mm; 11 minutes.
Puppets and live action. A woman is transformed into a puppet by a sorcerer with a magic key and given a chance to see the mechanisms that create our fate on Earth. Using Voodoo she manages to shrink the sorcerer and find love. The film plays with our understanding of time, puppets, magic and avatars.
35mm; 18.5 minutes. Directed by JoWOnder/Joanna Woodward; giant woman: Rose English; small man: Ian Cameron; live action cinematography: Andrzej Sekula.
A man falls in love with a ballerina that he sees dancing at the top of a tower block and sets off on a journey to find her. He discovers that the ballerina was only an evil mechanical brooch on a giant's shawl.
Winner Grande Priz Zageb Festival, Best Newcomer Cardif Animation Festival and The Time Out Film Award, UK.
Stop frame animated video installation.
A story of disappointing love. Shown as a part of "T1+2 Gallery Annex Projects" and exhibited in Rupert Sanderson's in Mayfair, London, June 2008.
High definition video of time-lapsed bacterial painting.
Using the beautiful colours of living bacteria JoWOnder made paintings over a six day period and filmed them in time lapse to create images for the six day installation, 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Ophelia appears to go mad and then drowns and is suspected of suicide. 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia is a version of John Millais' Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia that is painted using animated Bacillus Mycoides bacteria and allows people from across the world to submit poems by voicemail.
"I've always been fascinated by the idea of death and dying, and actually I think for me life is probably more frightening than death in the sense that, who knows where our bodies begin and where they end, I like the idea of Ophelia being a beauty but made up of something that we think is disgusting. But we shouldn't really be thinking it's disgusting because in fact, roughly nine out of 10 cells in our body are actually bacteria and as she lies in the lake she may be feeling fantastic as her body rejoins the earth. That's art's job to me -- to break down our firm idea of what we think the world is around is like what is pleasure and what is pain and look at it at fresh."
JoWOnder
The installation includes poems submitted by children and Kim Morrissey whose works often examine the role of women in nineteenth century culture and was used to depict Ophelia's soul and breath in the animated painting.
Please participate in this project by leaving a poem to Ophelia on her voice mail at +44 (0) 20 7183 9366 (standard land line rates in the UK).
If you would like to make a donation towards the creation of this 6 Days installation, which is currently being funded by the artist, contact JoWOnder at:
Super 16.
When a woman and a cat have an erotic encounter... A sensitive film about feline sexuality and unrequited love.