Skins

"Skins" is a silent film. No sound. I shot it on 8mm film in 1972 and finished it in 1976 as a 16mm film. The surface of motion picture film is organic matter, made from skin and hooves of cattle. Motion picture film, especially color film, has an emulsion of slightly varying thickness, so that the images on each physical frame can be seen in slight relief when looked at under reflected light. This surface structure is exploited in "Skins", through a slow process of soaking in water until dye layers (first yellow, then magenta, and last cyan) that constitute the images, lift off the film substrate and rearrange themselves in curtains of wrinkled matter. The effect is to reanimate the original subject matter of the film recording, taxidermy animals in a natural history museum diorama. Another effect is to unleash the organic matter of emulsion first animated by a living creature. (Barbara Lattanzi)