BIOG

Paul Tarrago is an artist film + video maker, beavering away with moving images down in South London. His work? A mix of underground experimentation and metafiction, tugging at the leash of film language but with narrative often held close at hand.
This can be seen frequently on the international circuit, including recent screenings at the Rotterdam International Film Festival, European Media Art Festival, ArtSway Gallery and the New York Underground Film Festival. His work will be appearing in the EMAF tour 2006/7.

For the past 13 years he's also been an activist with the Exploding Cinema - a filmmaker run collective dedicated to open access screenings and originating alternative methods of exhibition.

When not making work he spends his time and earns his living, teaching at University College for the Creative Arts.

Previous films, videos + related performance pieces by me include:

'Paul and the Badger' Episodes 1-3 (11.5 mins/9 mins/13.5 mins, 2005/6)
A simulated television series - equal parts moral instruction and narrative play, mediated through the forced fit of an experimental filmmaker as children's entertainer.

'Resident of Earth' (15 mins, 2005)
Domestic life in south London filtered through stories of weight (and waiting), local history, bad dreams and the ongoing colonisation of the moon.

'reanimator' (2 mins, 2004)
A minor reflection on the wonders of modern medicine.

'Making things meaningful' (8 mins, 2003)
A journey through home life where hope hangs by a tangle of fine and fragile threads - and an 8 minute video in which few answers are supplied, but much meaning is gathered along the way.

'Moving Back from the Beyond' (14 mins, 2002)
Faced with the possibility of return, the dead consider their next move. An experimental/narrative tale with live action, animation and pathos.

'How we make our films' (2.5 mins, 2002)
Illustrated (and wholly fictional) lecture on the 'light threads' methodology of filmmaking.

'Image Conscious' (11 mins, 2002)
Camden Arts Centre commissioned documentary of a residency conducted by Faisal Abdu'Allah.

'The Empty Film' (4 mins, 2000)
Prelude to a cycling trip as a fracture line on reality - incorporating live action and single frame work
(= animation + timed exposures).

'The Swinging Twirling Camera Film'/'End piece'
(5 mins/1.75 mins, 2000)
Doomed to fail kinetic Super 8 film experiment recorded live with slides, sound + the camera footage itself - strangely beguiling mayhem./ Multiply exposed personalities disordered.

'Why the Canary Sings No More' (14 mins, 2000)
Live action and animation treatment of an episode from Lautreamont's 1868 anti-novel 'Maldoror'. Part of an Anglo-German feature length collaboration.

'Last Night meant Nothing' (20.5 mins, 1999)
Experimental narrative journeying through the good and bad dreams of an otherwise indifferent night.

'Eratosthenes at Home' (5.5 mins, 1998)
Time-lapse film and live performance piece - fake biography and illustrated lecture on how the Earth's circumference was calculated.

'Signs of Life' (5.5 mins, 1997)
Found footage, offcuts and extraneous sequences reassemblage - a gesture to the pleasures of images that move.

'Human Error in the Mechanical Age' (11.5 mins, 1997)
More live action and animation, described in the Whitechapel Open screening notes by Andrew Kotting as:

'Glorious dreamscape and a dog connection, reminiscent of a bygone era at the dawning of the age of the answer machine'.

'Volcano meets the Press' (5 mins, 1996)
The film of the Press action - kinetic reworking of a publicity ploy for the Volcano Film Festival.

'Stay in a Friendly Country' (14 mins, 1995)
Formally eclectic but heartfelt tribute to the holiday home movie heritage of low gauge formats.

'Paint Sale' (3.5 mins, 1994)
A documentary - of sorts - retinted, toned, sped up, slowed down.

'Their Time Had Come' (5.5 mins, 1993)
A documentary on animal mortality - live action and hand treated footage (bleach + inks).

'Notebook' (13.5 mins, 1993)
A tribute to Marie Menken's film of the same name - literally a notebook spanning several tomes worth of self-devised techniques - narrative, formal and attacking and sticking things to the film-wise.

'Requiem for an Ice Baby' (6.5 mins, 1992)
The fleeting memories of a melting infant - live action, animation and rephotography (through ice).

'Home Town Reel' (5.5 mins, 1992)
Multiply exposed passage through local urban and domestic spaces.

'Life And How To' (11 mins, 1990)
Experimental narrative exploring a therapist's relationship with her kleptomaniac patient.

Selected screenings and exhibition of this work

In alphabetical order, here's an edited list of places this work has screened at. Fuller details (i.e. when, which ones, how often etc.) are available upon request.

5 Years Gallery (London)
Anthology Film Archives
Antimatter Festival of Underground Film + Video (Canada)
artcinema OFF-OFF (Copenhagen)
ArtSway Gallery
Aspex Gallery
AVIT UK
Balagan (Boston)
Berks Filmmakers (Pennsylvania)
Brighton Cinematheque
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Museum of Art
The Cafe Gallery (London)
Centre d'Art Santa Monica (Barcelona)
Centre for Contemporary Arts (Glasgow)
The Chateau (Brisbane)
Cinematexas International Short Film + Video Festival
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Cinema Nova (Brussels)
Commonwealth Film Festival (Manchester)
Curzon Cinema
De Balie (Amsterdam)
Electrofringe Festival (Australia)
European Media Art Festival (Germany)
The Exploding Cinema
Gallery Lombardi (Texas)
Gebaude 9 (Cologne)
Global Attic Video + Filmfestival (Rotterdam)
G werk-ost(Frankfurt)
Halloween Society (London)
Institute of Contemporary Arts (London)
Institut Francais (London)
Kinofilm International Festival of Short Film + Video (Manchester)
The Knitting Factory (New York)
KunstfilmBiennale Koln
LA Freewaves (Los Angeles)
The Lux
Lux Open
Mel Hoppenheim School of Film (Montreal)
Meridian TV
Mikrokino FEST (Serbia)
Milwaukee International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival
Montage Film Festival (Pennsylvania)
Nashville Film Festival
National Review of Live Art (Glasgow)
New York Underground Film Festival
Nova Cinema (Melbourne)
Nux Vomica Performance Club (London)
Ohne Kohle Video/Filmfestival (Austria + Germany)
OMSK (London)
The Pink Pony Theatre Film Show (New York)
The Pleasure Dome (Toronto)
Prague Indies Film Festival
Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin
The Ritzy Cinema
Rooftop Films (New York)
Rotterdam International Film Festival
The Roxy (Prague)
San Francisco Independent Film Festival
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The South London Gallery
Spark Video (Ontario)
Split International Festival of New Film
Super 8 Sideshow (Denver)
Thai Experimental Film Festival (Bangkok)
Total Mobile Home (San Francisco)
Tour of Benelux countries: including Amsterdam, Lille, Groeningen, Brussels, Ghent, Eindhoven
Tour of Germany: including Bremen, Magdeburg, Hamburg, Hanover
Transat Video (France)
Videarte Festival (Mexico City)
Volcano Film Festival (various London)
The Whitechapel Open
Yale Center for British Art (Connecticut)
Zed Cinema (Brussels)

My work is also featured on Vacuum #1 - a compilation of British underground film and video, the Lux touring package 'Animal Magic', and the New York based Pink Pony compilation. Another version of 'Why The Canary Sings No More' appears in the Anglo-German feature 'MALDOROR' (www.bak.spc.org/maldoror for further info.).