Mark Street

My work ranges from abstract hand-manipulated pieces to work that recontextualizes found footage, to films that involve written texts. Each film attempts to investigate new terrain, and avoids being confined by a specific look or mood. I like to work the surface of film to create rich visuals which I shape in a very intuitive, personal way. Since I started making films in 1983 I've always gone back to painting, bleaching a marking frames one by one; I'm exhilarated by this tactile relationship with film material. I like the way these abstract films (WINTERWHEAT, ECHO ANTHEM, MISSING SOMETHING SOMEWHERE, BLUE MOVIE, SWEEP) allow the viewer to be drawn into unfamiliar worlds.

Other films (LILTING TOWARDS CHAOS, EXCURSIONS, WHY LIVE HERE?) paint portraits of characters wrestling with their alienation from place. These films juxtapose narration and imagery so that the viewer is challenged to pick up the pieces. The films flutter between states, combining elements of fiction writing, diary, travelogue, landscape photography and documentary.

My interests in filmmaking are restless and peripatetic. I've made films about the American flag, soft-core pornography, a Brooklyn walk, a trip to Mexico, abstract shapes on black leader, and day-to-day life in Tampa, Florida. Each new project sends me spinning in a new direction. Because I reject the constraints of traditional production values and develop my own process for each new film, any subject seems possible.

"... confronting notions of home and community in an age of unprecedented transience and instability." - SF Cinematheque

"... a cartographer of interior landscapes forged from film chemistry, optically-printed materials, documentary/diary footage and journal entries." - LA Filmforum

"Provocative ... engaging ... Street leaves us with the very real sense that you take your possibilities and limitations with you wherever you go." -- The Los Angeles Times

http://www.markstreetfilms.com
http://markstreetfilms.blogspot.com/