ABSTRACT
In experimental ‘found footage’ films by Peter Tscherkassky, Nicolas Provost, and Gregg Biermann, the relationship between the cinematic face and frame is refigured. Using techniques of superimposition, distortion, collage, and montage to manipulate familiar screen faces and settings, these films invite us to reinhabit familiar cinematic worlds while reframing and rearticulating their spatial dimensions. In doing so, they concentrate not only on the face as visible expressive element but also on the spatiotemporal gesture of facing. The face thus becomes a pivot around which to orient explorations of surface and depth, figuration and fragmentation. By teasing apart and rearranging the relationship between cinematic faces and spaces, these works point cinema in new directions.
