“As one of the most striking examples of human-caused climate catastrophe, the Sea of Aral is gradually running dry. Various hand-processing techniques overlay a time-lapse of this slow demise as the erosion and cracking of the emulsion mirrors that of the landscape. The soundtrack is inspired by the original score composed by John D. H. Greenwood for Man of Aran (Robert J. Flaherty, 1934).” – Cristina Kolozsváry-Kiss, programmer, International Film Festival Rotterdam https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2024/films/man-of-aral
“Helena Gouveia Monteiro is another filmmaker whose passion for the photochemical format does not conflict with her interest in digital techniques. Her 2021 film Purkyně’s Dusk, shot in super8, then scanned in 2K and completed digitally at the Atelier 105 residency, like Return to Aeolus Street, can be viewed as an example of “synchronic hybridization,” which Jihoon Kim defines as “the sum of conceptual and technical operations that reposition the components of [previously] existing media and call into question, traverse, and redraw their formal and generic boundaries”11.
Taking as her point of departure the work of the 19th-century Czech scientist Jan Evangelista Purkyně on the perception of color by the human eye in changing light conditions, Gouveia Monteiro used both manual and digital techniques to manipulate the image. She first applied chemical tinting and toning techniques to the black and white super8 film strip. She then digitized these hand-colorized images, combining them with other sequences, which were shot on color super8 stock. As part of the Atelier 105 residency, Gouveia Monteiro worked with Light Cone’s technician at the time, Candice Perez, to de-saturate or highlight certain hues in order to approximate the effect described by Purkyně. The resulting image, finished digitally, belongs indistinguishably to both formats, following the filmmaker’s stated intention to propose “both digital and analogue means to disrupt the spectator’s perception of colour, tint, contrast, and saturation”.
Her following film, Man of Aral (2023), continues this investigation into intermediality, as it is sourced from digital satellite imagery of the disappearing Sea of Aral in Central Asia, which was kinescoped onto film using the same animation stand setup at L’Abominable. In Gouveia Monteiro’s own words, “A digital time lapse sequence was created from these images, transferred onto 16mm film, and chemically manipulated by hand with colour tints and toners, which affected the images visually and materially, creating a unique – both digital and analog, both mechanically and manually composed – hybrid visual object”13. The film was copied to internegative at the Portuguese Cinematheque, where positive 16mm copies were also made.”
in “Hybrid play: photochemical and digital practices within contemporary experimental film”, Mariya Nikiforova, V-F-X Ljubljana Festival, November 2023.
“Dans Purkyné’s Dusk (2021), Helena Gouveia Monteiro explore les variations de perception de la couleur dans des conditions de faible luminosité, en référence aux travaux du physiologiste Jan Evangelista Purkyné, lequel a donné son nom à l’effet Purkyné. La cinéaste fait poser un homme et une femme dans un parc, alternant les prises sur eux et sur des plantes et des fleurs, œuvrant à l’immersion et à la fusion des humains dans le végétal et dans la matière filmique argentique. Le film ne cesse de procéder par sauts : des végétaux aux humains ; d’une mimésis transparente à une plasticité affirmée. Des tâches de développement sur la pellicule induisent l’idée d’une immersion : tout comme la pellicule est plongée dans un bain chimique, le couple est plongé dans un bain de nature, de verdure et de couleurs, jusqu’à s’y fondre et y disparaître. Sur le chemin d’un égalitarisme, le générique de fin indique après le nom des deux acteurs humains le nom des acteurs végétaux apparus à l’écran : Papaver, Geranium, Skimmia, Malus, Euonymus, Escallonia, Nymphae, Cordyline. Reterrestrer l’humain invite à ré-imaginer l’ensemble du vivant, au sens de le remettre en image, de le remettre dans l’image, pour lui-même.”
Vincent Deville, “Plonger dans le grand bain, pour renouveler et étendre nos perceptions” in Expanded Nature, Light Cone Editions 2022 (p.240)
«Media Archaeology as Film Practice – the Werner Nekes Collection» conference paper, 4th International Conference Stereo & Immersive Media, Lisbon, 2021.
“Shade New Light“, Hangar Centro de Investigação Artística, Lisbon, 2021.
Artists’ Take Over for Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, October 2020.
“Odyssée” collective exhibition at Villa Arson and Galerie de la Marine, curated by Benjamin Laugier, 2015.