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CHELE ISAAC

photo >< synthesis

Single channel, 5:43

photo><synthesis interrogates change over time by blending tens of thousands of timelapse photos into a sequence that imagines the unfolding of life to death as deeply beautiful as it is full of glitchy starts and stops. This botanical wonder was the last plant I helped my mother re-pot before she died. At the time it was a pathetic few stalks and I didn't see the point, but she said, "...one day you'll be amazed. It will be beautiful."

Still image gallery – click to enlarge

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The Crash, or A Patch of Gravity

A film by Chele Isaac & Jack Kellogg
Single channel, 14:55

Mixing video, photography, animation, poetry and complex soundscapes, The Crash is a hypnotic and unsettling exploration of existential uncertainty in a time when truth is increasingly multifaceted and signals are unreliable.

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Facilities Fully Functional

2-channel video, 8:35

Facilities Fully Functional explores the tension and disconnect between natural and built worlds. Images of abandoned homes, dislocated animals and malfunctioning systems coalesce then transcend into a world uncorrupted, as dreamt by a dog.

Project details

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1/17

3 considerations before choreographing the End

Single channel, 9:51

3 considerations is a failed attempt to pre-grieve the loss of one's mother and a contemplation of where memories go when you lose someone you love.

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the understory

7-channel video installation, 20:31 (looping)
sound composition by Jack Kellogg

This 7-channel film is intended to be seen in a circular setting, with the individual projections recalling the portals of a spaceship or the periscope of a submarine; microscopic worlds and telescopic cosmos. the understory encourages a more intimate immersion within interstitial moments, overlooked details, and tenuous connections that investigate the indifference of nature and ones relationship to our changing environment.

Project details

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1/7

The End of Angels (film component)

2-channel video installation, 7:52

The End of Angels collapses and redeploys imagery from the 'real world' with built dioramas that track and investigate the uncanny messages that come through dreams. This space, between lived experience and ones struggle to interpret, is a focal point that is equally described as 'nothing' and 'everything', 'everywhere' and 'no where.'

Project details

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1/6

There is no fixing the drift (film component)

2-channel video, 11:10 (looping)

‎
This work explores how the deeply held grief usurps the body and makes one strange to oneself. Click on project details to learn more.

Project details

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From the Archive of Vagaries

Single-channel, 8:16

A mysterious traveller and their mythical alter ego merge after a cataclysmic event in the forest.

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1/6

American Quartet

2 or 4-channel video, 11:38 (looping)

American Quartet is a visual travelogue that tries to capture both the optimistic majesty and failed ambition of the American Dream. Anchored with a score by Jack Kellogg, American Quartet follows the jagged contours of an open-ended, westward road trip.

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Anywhere (animations)

{roughly 1-minute} stills

These sketches are from the Anywhere photo series and are meant to capture the surreal presence in abandoned spaces. Each roughly a minute long, the "still" photographs become unfixed and inhabited.

Watch animations

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The road that takes you there is the road that leads you back

Single-channel, 3:58

‎This very early film project is a lyrical sketch made in response to my first sound experiment. The shadow images were projected from a built diorama. I still kinda love it.

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The Long Shadow

Single-channel, 3:13

The Long Shadow was my first film. It merges a stop animation sequence shot with a Bolex camera and a "shot from the hip" live action scene caught on video with my beloved first dog, Maia.

The work contemplates my bad habit of grieving happiness in
the moment, knowing that nothing lasts. It's included here as a tribute to the dog who broke my heart open and to all the pups who have followed.

Still image gallery – click to enlarge

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