Ian Helliwell

Art Flies Free

Ian Helliwell

Jeff Keen

A Super-8 portrait of Jeff Keen. This short but evocative experimental portrait melds Keen's style with that of its maker, Ian Helliwell, another artist filmmaker based in Brighton. The title comes from an adage of Jeff Keen's and features Keen reading some Keen-isms.

Coloured Light District

Ian Helliwell

Derived from found super-8 footage of night-time cityscapes shot in London and Berlin in the early 1970s, this once-silent amateur film of lights and neon signs has been reorganized through editing, superimposition and colour inversion, with Helliwell's soundtrack combining electronics, computer sounds and short wave radio signals.

Practical Electronica

Ian Helliwell

Ian Helliwell's 2011 documentary about an important and previously untold link in the history of early British Electronic Music, F.C. Judd.

Return to the Light

Ian Helliwell

Evolving out of bleached off-cuts from the 1998 film 'Into The Light', this short abstract sequel overlays super 8 film shot directly into a projector beam.

Compound Eye

Ian Helliwell

A film shot with super-8 using various distortion lenses in front of the camera; partly in real-time, partly animation. The footage has been treated with coloured inks and bleach and features a specially composed electronic music soundtrack.

Angel Recovered

Ian Helliwell

A Super-8 film shot in 1997, re-edited and reworked with ink and bleach applied directly onto the footage. Parts of the original action can still be seen, though the emphasis is placed on texture, colour and the electronic music soundtrack.

Light Activation Feedback

Ian Helliwell

The image was formed through a process of reflection and feedback. A modified video camera connected to a monitor and pointing at the screen, was triggered into feedback via reflections on the screen surface generated by a laser and randomly flashing LEDs . The resulting flow of electronic images was controlled through camera movements and variations in the light sources.

Colour Stream

Ian Helliwell

Flowing lights and colours are the focus of this abstract film shot with super-8 through a close-up lens. Helliwell`s homemade electronics provide the rhythmic soundtrack.

Particle Acceleration

Ian Helliwell

Fast moving abstract film in two halves, gathering together Super-8 fragments and off-cuts shot over several years. The images include fairground lights and neon signs-- Images bleached, hand-coloured and edited into a frenetic collage.

Origami

Ian Helliwell

Found super-8 footage giving a short demonstration in the art of paper folding; the film has been bleached and cut up, and accompanied by electronic music and animated titles. Soundtrack: Hellitron tone generators.

Signal Tracing

Ian Helliwell

Abstract audio-generated waveform patterns from an oscilloscope and modified TV, were filmed with super-8 and then treated with bleach and vinegar. The electronic music features a special Hellitron photocell audio generator which reacts to varying amounts of light in the film. Soundtrack: Hellitron 10.

Grid

Ian Helliwell

Circles in formation glide by, in this abstract direct animation film. Coloured inks were applied onto clear super-8 with felt-tip pens, using an old speaker grill as a stencil. Soundtrack: Hellitron tone generators.

Patterns of Interference

Ian Helliwell

A combination of 2 reels of super-8 animation, with driving electronic music, creating superimposed pulsing abstract patterns of stroboscopic intensity.

The Atomium Age

Ian Helliwell

Split-screen film shot at the Atomium in Brussels, the centrepiece of the World`s Fair in 1958. The remarkable 335 feet high structure representing an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times, is captured with spontaneous super-8 camerawork, in all its silver spherical glory. Soundtrack: Hellisizer 2000, Hellitron generators.

ORBITING THE ATOM

Ian Helliwell

Electronically generated images, including Lissajous patterns from a modified television, were captured on Super-8 film and then treated by hand with coloured inks and bleach. Each of the five sections is closely matched by electronic music from Helliwell's customized circuits.

Lift Off Apollo Pavilion

Ian Helliwell

A short film composed of still images and electronic music, capturing the rugged brutalist beauty of Victor Pasmore's Apollo Pavilion, in Peterlee, County Durham. Helliwell composed the soundtrack and took more than 60 photographs of teh concerete structure in January 2020, combining these with animation and stills of NASA Apollo space missions to set the scene.