Graham Bowers

Unresolved Issues ... an excerpt from the short 13.5 minute film by Graham Bowers that was shown as part of the Wet Sounds art sound exhibition/event organised by Bangor Sound City at Bangor Swimming Pool on the 28th January 2011.

The film was projected on to the ceiling area above the pool and the pre-recorded music mixed live by Graham Bowers through an audio mixing console and broadcast through under and over water speakers. The audio listening experience of hearing the music is quite different for the audience that brave themselves to float or submerge in the pool, as audio has significantly different properties in air and water.

'Unresolved Issues' illustrates in a musical and visual way circumstances that cannot, for whatever reason, resolve ... whether that be a social occasion, a thought process, a chemical reaction, or a piece of music ... all the ingredients are there but it just doesn't happen like one may wish for, or expect.

Original artwork: Clive Walley, Graham Bowers.
Music: Graham Bowers, Mark Porter, Peter Bendict Gallagher, Jim Keddie.

Wet Sounds ~ Bangor

Wet Sounds ~ Website information

MiShorts ~ Review ~ Critics Choice of the month:
This intense experimental movie from director, Graham Bowers is awash with colour and animation as pastel shades see human-like figures come in and out of view while abstract geometric shapes play on screen and a series of blotches and lines play out a ever-changing landscape. The soundtrack to all this movement is a minimal, but vibrant mix of piano, strings and percussion that suck the viewer into a world of constant movement.

The film’s second half sees all manner of wind instruments taking on living, breathing shapes as an ever-present countdown takes over. It’s a trippy journey that possesses a relentless, restless feel – the intention of Bowers who states that the short demonstrates there is no end to an issue, just perpetual flux. A vibrant, hypnotic joy. Mike Barnard ~ Editor ~ Future Movies.
Thanks to Richard Harris CEO of MiShorts for Permission to include this review

Hiraeth
Hiraeth is a Welsh word that has no direct English translation; an approximation would be the longing, or yearning for home. The title, the visuals and the music were all part of one original thought and idea, where the focus on one aspect was intrinsically tied to the others in an amorphous matrix of feelings.

The visual footage is of a locked-off shot of a view looking out to sea through a window in a house situated on a hillside in Anglesey. Over a period of 24 hours, every two hours, eight minutes of film was taken. This was then edited down to fifteen minutes in length; the result is a continually changing landscape, the progression of change being barely discernible. (similar to watching the minute hand on a clock)

The content of the visual image is intended to work on many levels, primarily an ever-changing snapshot that invites the viewer to take time to ‘sit and stare’ and to absorb the beauty of all the elements, and how their respective scales of change alter the fixed image and our emotive responses to them.

For example, the petunia in the foreground is both interesting in scale, movement and structural fragility. There is a similarity of the relationship between this small insignificant flower and the massiveness of the sea and sky to that of mankind and the world at large. The speed and erratic movement of the flower head responding to the eddying wind currents is similar to the way mankind reacts to the ever increasing pressures of his own making in the form of ephemeral social systems that come and go and are as invisible as the wind itself, and largely go unnoticed by in the relatively timeless scale of the history of the sea and the sky. It is also a symbol of mankind’s presence within the overall scheme of things, as are the tired looking roses and other domestic garden plants in the near foreground, and hence the comparison to structural fragility. The fields and the trees in the near to middle distance illustrate another level of scale, although each blade of grass and every leaf is responding to the wind as is the petunia, because of the distance from the viewpoint of the human eye, all that can be seen is a much gentler overall action, a resultant of all the parts, which to the casual viewer doesn’t truly represent the actual magnitude of scale. The detail is not considered because it cannot be seen.

Analogies of this type can be applied to all the other aspects and natural phenomena within the continually changing land-sea-sky-scape. The relentless power of the rising and falling tide, the power of the unseen wind and pressure illustrating their presence in the movement of the changing cloud patterns and cover, which in turn dictate the levels of ambient light and temperature.

The soundtrack consists of three songs, Myfanwy, Abide with Me, an excerpt from Wrth Afonydd Babilon sung by the Welsh male voice choir Côr Meibion y Traeth, with two short intentionally quiet, digitally treated piano sections, that complement the vocals and evoke the sentiments of the title and draw the viewer into the overall mood of the work.

Visuals ~ Graham Bowers
Music ~ Côr Meibion Y Traeth

On the Road to Nowhere
A short film following a journey of discovery, and the life changing consequences.

Visuals ~ Graham Bowers
Music ~ Graham Bowers

Yr Aelwyd
The film is a 'visual recording' of the thoughts and memories, triggered on return to the childhood home after spending a lifetime elsewhere ... the sole survivor of a once close and loving family, and the last in the genetic line.

'Yr Aelwyd' is a Welsh expression, and as ‘Hiraeth’ has no direct English translation, but describes the feeling, memories, warmth and security of the home and family, and in this case the consequential nostalgia. The direct translation of Aelwyd means 'hearth' or 'fireplace' ... something that would be found in everyone's home in bygone days and would be the 'heart' and the feeling of 'home'.

Visuals ~ Graham Bowers
Music ~ Tobias Fischer & Miina Virtanen.

A DVD of the film has now been published and released ~ for details click here to buy through Red Wharf, or if you prefer click here to buy through Amazon

Yr Aelwyd has won the best film award in the Avant-Garde category ~ Swansea Film Festival

... and is scheduled for screening at Chagrin Falls International Documentary Film Festival ~ USA ~ October 2010. where it is listed under 'Best Human Spirit Documentary' ~ Chagrin Falls Film Festival

Other links: International Movie Data Base~Yr Aelwyd     Vimeo~Yr Aelwyd    MiShorts~Yr Aelwyd

Mitosis, Meiosis, Metempsychosis
Graphic meanderings contemplating and illustrating the division and replication of diploid and haploid living cells and the transmogrification of digital technology into ‘real virtuality’ … all a bit wordy … but a thought provoking subject and an exciting idea.

The visuals have been generated from a 3D Scan of a recent figurative sculpture by Graham Bowers... the images were generated in a 3D CAD program after importing the Scan file ... over 1.2 million vertices producing 750,000 facets (triangular faces).

A replica of the original sculpture has now been physically produced by the Fused Depostion Modelling process

Visuals: Graham Bowers
Music: Human Heartbeat