In the Future soundtrack by Earle Peach (3 minutes)
18 In the Future by Earle Peach
This nine-part video strains childhood through a history of reproduction, culling pictures from the Lumiéres to the present day in order to find the future in our past. Here are children of pictures, as pictures, the ones who will walk on our graves, granted a legacy of framing that has helped shape their lives, and their ability to grieve those no longer around to share them.
A video in nine parts: In the Future (3 min), Jack (15 min), Last Thoughts (7 min), Portrait (4 min), Secret (2 min), In My Car (5 min), The Game (5.5 min), Scaling (5 min), Imitation of Life (21 min).
Last Thoughts soundtrack (7 minutes)
“The structure of Imitations of Life can be compared with Hoolboom’s earlier movie Panic Bodies. Both consist of separate chapters connected to an overall theme and title, which this time is: the imitation of life. The returning question is why and how we represent ‘life’ in pictures, in film and in our memories, and how memory and media influence each other… Imitations summons pictures as evidence and storytelling fragments in these essayistic briefs. It moves from the portrait of his nephew to the wordless aquatic epiphany of Last Thoughts which simulates the rush of pictures in the last moment of consciousness.” Esma Moukhtar, Montevideo Catalogue
Portrait soundtrack (4 minutes)
“In his films, Mike Hoolboom is working on the construction and deconstruction of memory: Imitations of Life, his essay film in ten parts, is an inspiring combination of fragments of fictitious and authentic (auto)biographies, of found footage, home movies and a lyrical voice over. The video in ten parts is trying to find a future in the past by revisting childhood memories as proposed by Sigmund Freud. This work is part of a series of films and videos dealing with the body, perception, sickness, death and reproduction.” Tip, Berlin
“…This sometimes take the form of a fable or a myth, like in Portrait’s reworking of the Lumiere brothers’ footage, or Secret’s foetal creation tale.” Esma Moukhtar, Montevideo Catalogue
Secret soundtrack (2 minutes)
“In his films, Mike Hoolboom is working on the construction and deconstruction of memory: Imitations of Life, his essay film in ten parts, is an inspiring combination of fragments of fictitious and authentic (auto)biographies, of found footage, home movies and a lyrical voice over. The video in ten parts is trying to find a future in the past by revisting childhood memories as proposed by Sigmund Freud. This work is part of a series of films and videos dealing with the body, perception, sickness, death and reproduction.” Tip, Berlin
“…This sometimes take the form of a fable or a myth, like in Portrait’s reworking of the Lumiere brothers’ footage, or Secret’s foetal creation tale.” Esma Moukhtar, Montevideo Catalogue
The Game soundtrack (7 minutes)
“Mike Hoolboom’s restlessly intelligent film Imitations of Life is broken up into ten parts, each revolving around issues of representation, eventually narrowing into a sort of treatise on the Hollywood dream factory and its impact on how we imagine the future. Working in a transcendental style not entirely dissimilar to Chris Marker’s, Hoolboom reconfigures a wide array of found footage into a consistently compelling meta-movie which demands and rewards rapt attention.” AN, Eye Weekly
Scaling soundtrack (5 minutes)
This nine-part video strains childhood through a history of reproduction, culling pictures from the Lumiéres to the present day in order to find the future in our past. Here are children of pictures, as pictures, the ones who will walk on our graves, granted a legacy of framing that has helped shape their lives, and their ability to grieve those no longer around to share them.
A video in nine parts: In the Future (3 min), Jack (15 min), Last Thoughts (7 min), Portrait (4 min), Secret (2 min), In My Car (5 min), The Game (5.5 min), Scaling (5 min), Imitation of Life (21 min).
Rain soundtrack (5 minutes)
This ten-part video strains childhood through a history of reproduction, culling pictures from the Lumiéres to the present day in order to find the future in our past. Here are children of pictures, as pictures, the ones who will walk on our graves, granted a legacy of framing that has helped shape their lives, and their ability to grieve those no longer around to share them.
A video in nine parts: In the Future (3 min), Jack (15 min), Last Thoughts (7 min), Portrait (4 min), Secret (2 min), In My Car (5 min), The Game (5.5 min), Scaling (5 min), Imitation of Life (21 min), Rain (4 min).
