CRITICAL
OVERVIEW:
Michael Buckley is a filmmaker who
began his career by making 16mm experimental films in the ‘70s
and ‘80s. In the mid ‘90s he moved into the new media interactive
realm. This is due in part to the cost blow-out in 16mm production.
His two experimental CD ROM works 'The Good Cook' and 'The Swear
Club' are short interactive fragmented narratives that explore
interlocking memories from which the audience constructs meaning.
These works are influenced by his experimental film-making background,
an influence which continues with his current interactive project
researching uses of 'Gesture'
across moments in time and location.
Check out
some animations - One Two
Three
FILMOGRAPHY:
The Awakening
(1974, 6 mins, 16mm)
Doctor
God (1977, 14 mins, 16mm)
Two Songs
by Dougie Young (1979, 8 mins, 16mm)
The Incubus
(1979, 12 mins, 16mm)
Beat Up
(1980, 2 mins 30 secs, 16mm)
Exacuate
(1984, 6 mins, 16mm, co-director Sue McCauley)
I Hate
Cops (1985, 4 mins, 16mm)
Work
(1985, 12 mins, 16mm)
Aesops
Fables (1985, 3 mins, 16mm)
Untitled
(1986, 6 mins, 16mm)
Ancestor
Worship (1987-90, 42 mins, 16mm)
Thread
of Voice (1992-93, 15 mins, 16mm, co-directors Frank Lovece,
Marisa Stirpe, Marcus Bergner)
Witness
(1994, 8 mins, 16mm, television documentary)
Forever
Young (1994, 8 mins, 16mm, animation)
Planet
Arcadia (1995, 16 mins, video)
Big Bags
Japanese Adventure (1997-98, 60 mins, video, television documentary)
MULTIMEDIA
The Swear
Club (1994, CD ROM)
The Good
Cook (1996, CD ROM)
High Art
(1996, CD ROM)
East Timor
- Culture, Identity and Dreams of Return (1999, CD ROM, co-director)
UFO's
over Bendigo (2001, CD ROM)
Gesture
- Arriving, Engaging, Departing,
multi screen gallery installation at the Charles Sturt University
Gallery in Wagga Wagga, November 2004.
Selected Screenings and Awards
1985 tour
of West Germany by the Cantrills of Australian Experimental Films
1986 tour
of North America by Dirk De Bruyn of Australian Experimental Films
1986 to ‘95
Various MIMA/experimenta screenings Melbourne
1991 St Kilda
Film Festival. Best Documentary, Ancestor Worship
1991 London
Film Festival Ancestor Worship
1992 Manchester
Ethnographic Film Festival Ancestor Worship
1994 St Kilda
Film Festival. Best Documentary, Thread of Voice
1994 Melbourne
Film Festival. Highly Commended, Thread of Voice
1994 Best
Independent Film, Bathurst Film Festival, Witness
1994 'Bip
Map 100', Melbourne computer art exhibition
1995 Finalist
AFI Awards, Witness
1995 St Kilda
Film Festival. Forever Young 'Excellence in Filmmaking
Craft Award'
1995 Interactive
Gallery, Southbank. 'The Swear Club' CD Rom
1996 'Burning
the Interface', International Artists CD ROM Exhibition, Museum
of Contemporary Art, Sydney
1996 Young
Talent Pavilion for ‘The Swear Club’, MILIA, Cannes, France.
1996 Melbourne
Film Festival, ‘The Swear Club’.
1997 La Terre
Blanche Festival, CICV, Montbeliard, France. Festival guest artist
1998 'Being
Connected' Australian Film Commission, Multimedia Conference,
Guest Speaker
1998 'Consciousness
Reframed' conference, CAIIA, Wales. Guest artist
1998 'Michael
Buckley Retrospective', Adelaide Mercury Cinema
1998 Big
Bag's Japanese Adventure, TV Documentary, ABC
1999 ‘The
Good Cook’. Fusion Program, St Kilda Film Festival
1999 NEXT
Conference Darwin 'East Timor - Culture, Identity and Dreams of
Return' and 'The Good Cook'
2000 'East
Timor - Culture, Identity and Dreams of Return' Fusion Program
St Kilda Film Festival
2000 'The
Good Cook' Chip Multimedia Program, Melbourne International Film
Festival
2000
'East Timor - Culture, Identity and Dreams of Return' Finalist
NSW Premiers AVHistory Awards
2001 ‘Ufo’s
Over Bendigo’ interactive installation at the Bendigo Art Gallery.
2002 ‘Ufo’s
Over Bendigo’ interactive St Kilda Film Festival Program.
2002
Fellowship
from the New Media Arts Board of the Australia Council
‘Visual Essay’ work since 2003
Screens
and Screams 2003 - 20 min, with Sue Mccauley. 300 kids make
multimedia.
Why
2004 – 10 min. A film for the ‘Hidden Lives Project’ about survivors
of institutional care.
‘Inner
Self / Outer Image’ 2005 -30 min – 3 screen work with stART
Collective
Twelve
Tuff Tales 2004 – 10 min, with Sue Mccauley. Twelve kids tell
bad day stories.
Hairy
Tales 2005 – 8 min with Sue Mccauley. Kids get lost and found
in a multimedia forest.
Walk
2004 - 20 min. A man walks around the backstreets of Dui India
Match
2004 – 10 min with Hansa Thapliyal. An insomniac looks for a match
in Mumbai, India. (Read
the following account
of the film shoot)
Untitled
2004 – 2 min. A dance film made from gestures
Racetrack
2004 – 10 min with Hansa Thapliyal and Shammi Nando. Big gamblers
at the Mumbai racetrack.
Staghunt
2004 – 15 min. The shootin and huntin crowd meet in darkest Somerset.
Irish
Ancestory(sic) 2004 – 2004. An old lady is taunted by her
two sons.
Between
Shaves 2004/6 – Michael has a shave 20 years later in a barbers
shop in Pushka India.
The Happy
Prince 2004 – Kids in a primary school in Co Sligo Ireland
retell the Oscar Wilde fairy story.
Gesture
- Arriving, Engaging, Departing 2004. Multiscreen exhibition
at the Charles Sturt University Gallery in Wagga Wagga. This was
series of short visual essays and interactive works projected
on a number of screens in the gallery.
Easey
Street 2005 45 min – A Man builds a house and sings about
it.
Kids Sports
2006 – 10 min with Sue Mccauley. Kids in Carlton act out their
favourite real and imaginary sports.
Tumbleweeds
2006 – 15 min. Getting retrenched and shooting back. Who are the
cowboys at Victoria University?
The Groom
2006 – 10 min. The groom feeds the cat and gets ready on his wedding
day.
Ice Storm
2007 – 8 min. A mother walks around old footage from Antarctica
and talks about the death of her son from a Heroin over dose.
Exacuate
1984 / 2007. Revisiting past and present mug shots of myself and
Sue.The following extract is a letter from C. Cantrill to Marcus
Bergner: I would like to know from which dictionary came the quote
for EXACUATE. What I have on paper from Michael is: ‘Some cephalicks
exacuate and strengthen the inhabitants there of (the brain) and
the animal spirits.’ (sic) That sounds like gibberish to me, and
I cannot imagine what dictionary would have ‘cephalicks’.
Blow
2007 – 12 min. Young adults return to childhood and blow up a
cathedral in Dui, India.
Ascending
/ Descending 2007- 15min. Two films made with Dave
Lane in a back street in Fitzroy for his book, ‘Tibet Spring’.
Two Horses
2007 – 8 min. Some one has died. Two men follow the coffin through
the town of Baradine.
Window
2007 – 8 min. A man looks out a window at the Himalayas for 5
hours.
Hospital
Drawings 2007 – 7 min. A son goes in for major chest surgery.
The father draws pictures.
Farm Art
and Friends 2007– 20 min, with Ann Ferguson and Victoria Ryle.
An Art project between 4 years olds and middle-aged men are explored.
Gesture
Pac 2007 A collection of short films and book exploring intellectually
disabled gesture.
Lucknow
Bookshop 2008 – 6 min The mania of big city traffic in India
and Engelbert Humperdink.
Guru Beer
2008 – 4 min. A family drink Guru beer and sing.
Ladak
Monastery 2008 - 20 min. A breathless tour of lonely monastery’s
in Ladas India.
‘A Pottery
Village’ 2008 – a 17 min DVD and book. Potters in Hastal Village
New Delhi – with Sandra Bowkett.
Fitzroy
Wedding 2008 10 min. The camera gets drunk at a wedding
in Fitzroy.
Grab a
Gun 2008 – Book and DVD that explores Cowboys and Disability.
Coco’s
Dream 2008 – 8 min animation about the importance of dreaming.
Coco’s
Plans 2008 – 10 min animation about Coco planning her future.
Collections
ACMI (Australian
Centre for the Moving Image - Melbourne)
National
Film Library, ACMI (series of selected films)
Swinburne
Film Collection (Vincent Library)
Australian
Film Institute
Melbourne
University Film Collection
Community
Services Victoria Library
Modern
Image Makers Association Yearbook 1987
Infermental
Video Collection (Tokyo)
Manchester
University Library Ethnographic Collection.
Grayfox
Video Collection 1994, Bristol
Artlink
Sequinz CD Rom, Survey of Electronic Art In Australia
Arthouse
Multimedia Centre Dublin
Victoria
University
Victorian
College of the Arts
Griffith
University
University
of South Australia
Pompidou
Centre for the Arts Paris
Victoria
University Multimedia Collection
SELECT
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Cantrills
Filmnotes,
No. 57/58, pages 11 - 21
Experimenta
Catalogues, 1988 MIMA
Film and
Video National Tour Catalogue, MIMA 1991
Infermental
8 Catalogue, Tokyo Edition 1988
Year Book
Collection, MIMA 1987
Australian
Film Institute Catalogue, 1989
AFC Directory
of films 1991-1993
Cantrills
Filmnotes, No. 71/72
Electronic
Arts in Australia, Continuum 1994
Mesh
magazine (MIMA), 1994
Cantrills
Filmnotes, No. 79/80 Arf Arf collaborative piece
Digital Australia,
1999
Unearthed
Catalogue, Experimenta / Bendigo Art Gallery 2001
New Screen
Media - Cinema/Art/Narrative, Martin Rieser and Andrea Zapp,
eds, British Film Institute book 2002.
"Review
of New Screen Media - Cinema/Art/Narrative", by Patrick
Tarrant, Metro No. 136, 2003.
The Falling
Upart Journals Issues three, four and five.(available upon
request)
- ‘What
I Ate’ 2000. Book and CD Rom ‘The Good Cook’
- ‘Feeble
Fables and Fairy Tales’ 2006. Book and DVD (Read
this extract)
- ‘Owl’
2007. Book and DVD
©
Michael Buckley, May 2008
Contact
Michael Buckley
Many of the films and
visual essays made by Michael Buckley are available on DVD by
request.
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