Moving Image Work ::

Stadium Punctum

from the SALA Moving Image Project, 2015 curated by Susan Bruce for the Adelaide Oval Screens. Responding to the theme, 'Where Sport Meets Art', this work was created with choreographer Carol Wellman Kelly with a small group of volunteers specifically for this month-long screening.

Stadium Punctum from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

 

from the series 'An Endless Loop'

Screen Dance Work

A Forest Traversed

 

The Forest Traversed from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

 

‘The forest traversed’
In the forest, the place that she knows.
Driven by blue she shifts, she bounds, she traverses.
Forest landscape sounds echo her name, she is one with elemental texture, elemental terrain.
Wild at heart her surroundings speak to her gentle nature. 
Natural light guides her, she reaches the top of the hill.
She is free, she is at home.
Secretly she traverses only seen by animal and element.

This is a short moving image piece created as a result of an arts residency with Forestry SA. Artists Billie Cook (dance) and Sam Oster (photo-media) spent a week (with 4 other artists from various disciplines) in Mount Crawford Forest (South Australia) exploring a range of ideas. Using timelapse techniques they shot a variety of sequences to explore the forest and movement. This film is the result of their explorations. It will be shown at Riddoch Art Gallery (Mount Gambier SA) along with work produced by the other artists that participated in the residency in late 2011 (International Year of the Forest).

Music by Heather Frahn

String Theory from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

String Theory is a timelapse exploration of the concept of String Theory, developed in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Billie Cook. We presented the project with 3 separate soundtracks at a Moving Image exhibition (SALA Festival 2008), and audiences could view the work with a choice of these 3 soundtracks. We were interested in what the different tracks offered the work in terms of how the work is interpreted, and how meaning is negotiated.

This version has a soundtrack created by Anders (Andy Matthews) who sampled various audio 'texts' inspired by the idea of String Theory.

This piece plays with different shutter speeds and 'frame rates' and was shot at my studio in the cyclorama.

  

Teacup Ballet from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

This is a stop-motion screen dance inspired by Olive Cotton's 1935 photograph "Teacup Ballet". The film was made in collaboration with choreographer Felecia Hick.

Circuit from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

'Circuit' was made with dancer and choreographer Felecia Hick. We were interested in working on location with movement inspired by the landscape. The piece was shot in a single day and the film was resolved in the edit with the support of editor David Ngo (Cutting Room). The soundtrack is by Pretty Boy Crossover (thanks to Jason Sweeney), and the cinematographer was Adam Garstone (UK).

Mute Stark Rich from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

MUTE :: STARK :: RICH is a screen dance project created as a result of a dance film mentorship. I worked with 3 dancers (Billie Cook, Felecia Hick, Sarah Cartwright) as a photographer and emerging moving image artist, and we were funded by Arts SA to work with a dance film mentor Sue Healey (Sydney) to produce a first-stage development of a screen dance piece. This 3-minute film was collaboratively conceived based loosely on the text Chroma by Derek Jarman. Choreographed by Felecia Hick, performed by Billie Cook and Sarah Cartwright, and filmed by Sam Oster. A collaborative edit supported by The Cutting Room.

 

Moving Image Work

Breathe (2010) from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

 

 

This is an experiment using a traditional timelapse subject in a 'controlled' environment. I set it up in my darkroom with 2 off-camera flashes, and shot it over a week. One of the major challenges was maintaining battery power, and I didn't manage to do this consistently. I do quite enjoy, however, the way the light flickers and changes across the piece. The soundtrack is beautiful, borrowed from Ulrich Schnauss. This is very rough, and I am working on developing a more reliable lighting solution :)

Grow from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

'Grow' is a timelapse of a discarded fan in the garden. Over 8 months the foliage gradually starts to grow around the fan, and we see the seasons changing as the fan sits unaffected by the cycles around it.

The timelapse was captured on an old Nikon D100 using Nikon Capture software to manage the timing of the shots. Images were captured every half hour during daylight hours. In editing the image sequence I tried to select files that were taken in more overcast conditions to limit the frenetic changes that bright sunshine created in the sequence. This work was exhibited with photographic work in the exhibition 'Short Circuit' which investigates discarded electrical objects, displayed on a large digital photo frame. It was exhibited in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Eye to Eye Fine Art Gallery (Adelaide), and Obscura Gallery (Melbourne).

Melt from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

Melt is a timelapse of an old radiant heater, frozen in a block of ice, as it melts across the day. It was shot in the city against the backdrop of the Adelaide cityscape, on the balcony of a hotel. The piece explores the urban use of electrical energy.

This work was exhibited with photographic work in the exhibition 'Short Circuit' which investigates discarded electrical objects, displayed on a large digital photo frame. It was exhibited in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Eye to Eye Fine Art Gallery (Adelaide), and Obscura Gallery (Melbourne).

Evaporate from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

This piece was produced for a moving image exhibition curated by Annemarie Kohn for Artspace at the Adelaide Festival Centre. It was projected very large onto a screen that could be seen from inside the gallery by day and through the gallery window by night. It is a montage of two separate timelapse captures. The foreground is a timelapse of a large block of ice melting (this was shot in the studio against a green screen). The background is a 12-hour time-lapse of an old pumping station at the Dry Creek Salt Facility in Adelaide, which uses solar evaporation processes to produce it's salt.

I was interested in the idea that as the solar energy builds across a day it melts the block and ice to reveal the landscape.

The montage was edited by David Ngo (The cutting Room). There is no soundtrack as it was designed to be viewed in a busy gallery environment.

Capacitor from Sam Oster on Vimeo.

This moving image piece was produced to display in an exhibition titled 'Capacitor' in 2005, alongside photo-montage work (see this work at www,silvertrace.squarespace.com). It involves a montage of a photographic still (the kitchen window) and a video shot at a wind farm across a full day. The video work was sped up to create a 'timelapse' effect. The video montage and edit was done by Dave Ngo (The Cutting Room). The soundtrack was created by Russell Alexander (Rusty Prod Soundworks) with voice work by Jennifer Jones. As a piece that was designed for a gallery audience it translates quite differently as a monitor experience.