Two ‘machine’ films: About Now MMX and Ex Library
Hamlyn, Nicky (2016) Two ‘machine’ films: About Now MMX and Ex Library. Senses of Cinema (78). ISSN 1443-4059
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The essay is concerned with ideas about cameras as machines and how they ‘see’. It compares two films by London-based filmmakers William Raban and William English. Both films were shot from high vantage points –the top of the Balfron Tower in East London and the 14th floor of a residential block in Old Street. Both are notably mechanical in the way the camera moves incrementally, frame by frame and both make extensive use of time-lapse photography. The sense of human agency behind the camera is thus diminished, although the film’s subjects are significantly human, either directly or by implication. The essay considers the idea of machine vision that the works generate, but it also touches on the politics of the London housing crisis.
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