Axis (2013)

Movie 18 min

Axis takes as its subject matter the mundane, faceless urban landscape with its gleaming towers and factories. The workaday humdrum... drones to the hive. So I take to the streets, with my homemade Bolex robot, affectionately known as "BOLBOT." It is a time-lapse motion control machine capable of smoothly spinning through X-Y-Z axes continuously or in a stop/go pattern. The resulting footage is a transformed view of the city; urban scenes are in a continual state of exaggerated movement. A main idea of this film is to take mediated views of everyday city scenery and to elevate the city to a frenzied cosmic rendering with orb-like symmetries abounding. The city, and nature are transformed into a seething and pulsing mandala. The hope is that the spectator experiences meditative, trancelike states.

John Kneller Director