A Record of Your Own Time
Over eight days and a single roll of film, use the camera to follow your own attention — a record not of the world as it was, but of how you were able to see it.
In 1959, Stan Brakhage taped moth wings to a strip of film. He wasn’t documenting anything. He wanted to know what film could carry when freed from the obligation to record the world as it appears.
This course begins from the same place.
Over eight days, working through a single roll of film, you will use the camera not to record what is in front of you, but to follow your own attention as it moves: where your eye lingers, what it skips, how time feels while you are looking.
Once a week we meet over Zoom for two hours — accountability and learning time together — to talk through what surfaces: what drew you, what resisted, what the camera caught that you didn’t expect.
By the end you will have a finished roll — a record not of the world as it was, but of the world as you were able to see it.
A record of your own time.
What's Included
- 2 hours per week via Zoom
- 8 days of practices with your camera
- One roll of film (24 or 36 exposures, colour or black and white)
- A notebook for journal prompts
- Ideas and practices drawn from experimental filmmakers, including:
- Stan Brakhage
- Maya Deren
- Andy Warhol
- Jonas Mekas
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- and others thinking about perception, time, and what a camera can do beyond recording
The Eight Days
- Day 1Attention
- Day 2Truth
- Day 3Light
- Day 4Duration
- Day 5Out of Your Hands
- Day 6The Body
- Day 7What Arrives
- Day 8Your Own Time
For information and launch dates please contact
sierravalois@gmail.com