Traveller's Tales
Document Type
Media
Abstract
From the Editors' Introduction:
Traveller’s Tales is a found footage film, originally a one and half minute long documentary stub of 35 millimetre film that Sharp has edited into a 13 minute long essayistic piece about representation – and in particular how the other has been displayed. The result is a documentary about documentary practice itself that is both critical and meditative. Using found objects, most often as a way of asserting the enchantment that exists in everyday life, is a staple of the historical avant-garde, but Sharp’s found footage is put to use as a philosophy of cinematic form. Furthermore, travelling is one of the fundamental metaphors of and means for reflection and thought. Travelling, and cinema about travel, are methods for leaving the established modes of a genre in order to interrogate other ways of knowing, or, seeing. Sharp offers of course no solution; instead he invites the viewer and the reader to take part in the journey and the tales being told. And as so often when severe interrogation is taking place, the act of addressing an object is transformed into the act of questioning yourself. The object is suddenly gazing back. The most dramatic image and shot – in a double sense – in Sharp’s film depicts a Tuareg loading his rifle that is pointing towards the one that is shooting the film. Accordingly Sharp ends his tales with writing: “>nothing>blue nothing>blue>empty blue video signal" and a plea for blurred images.
Repository Citation
Sharp, Tim. "Traveller's Tales." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 9, no. 2, 2009, . https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol9/iss2/4
Comments
Format: video
Run time: 12:56
Note: Video begins at 20 sec.
It may seem as if the film is not working as there are blue screens present intermittently throughout. You are seeing the video in full as intended by the author. To read about this film see Tim Sharp's Notes & Queries on Traveler's Tales.)