Visible Bits, Audible Bites - year 9

For the ninth year in a row, Phoenix Cinema held the Cultural Exchanges event Visible Bits, Audible Bytes.
 
As a joint honours film studies and writing student, I spend a lot of time in the Phoenix, and know that, as an independent cinema, it usually holds interesting and stimulating events. 

This event was hosted by De Montfort University's very own Professor Bret Battey and consisted of seven pieces of work: Cyclic from Numbercult and Max Cooper, Nuées by Myriam Boucher, Virtual Actors in Chinese Opera by Tobias Gremmler and the GuoGuang Opera Company, Estuaries 3 by Bret Battey, Scan_0.1 by Giorgio Bertinelli, Vacuum by Francesco Martí, and finally, Jean Piché's thirty minute long piece Threshing in the Palace of Light. 

I found every single piece extremely captivating and emotive, and I really don't think that I could say that I have ever experienced any piece of art that is in any way similar to any of the works I saw at this event.
 
The most emotive for me would have to be Nuées by Myriam Boucher, as I found it genuinely scary and anxiety inducing, due to its loud, jarring, repetitive sounds and the disturbing crossing over of images of birds flying. 

My favourites out of all of the clips, however, were definitely Virtual Actors in Chinese Opera by Tobias Gremmler and the GuoGuang Opera Company and Estuaries 3 by Bret Battey.
 
Battey's piece was rather soothing, and visually reminded me of what one would envision the feeling of a sneeze to look like: fuzzy and lingering. 
 
Virtual Actors in Chinese Opera was really interesting to me, as I love dance and it was so captivating to see such wonderful colours and shapes moving alongside one another so gracefully to create a sense of a character.

I would definitely recommend anyone who is interested in the arts and forms of creativity in any way to attend the tenth event in this series next year, as I think everyone could take something from it.



Paige Nicole