Critical Writing Index

All the Faces are Us: An Interview with Tom Chomont

by Scott Macdonald

Afterimage, Summer 1981, v. 9, no. 1 & 2, pp. 26-34

Filmmaker Tom Chomont discusses his artistic life. Beginning as a curator of experimental films in and around Boston, his shows were often shut down by police. He then began to show some of his own work in New York, but found that he was seen as a programmer rather than a filmmaker. He discusses his experience with depression and paranoia and his sexuality and dreams, all of which were manifested as images in his films. Chomont emphasises his technique of combining negatives and positives, which he says resembles solarized video, and creating 3-D effects with red and green filters. During a period when he was influenced by hallucinatory meditation techniques, he made Untitled, a film shot off the TV which treats the test pattern like a mandala and creates a symmetrical relationship between reversed images. His later films use found footage, out-takes and idiosyncratic processing techniques to create works that destroy and alienate the images, juxtaposng images that appear to be reversed because of their unusual composition and images that actually have been manipulated. Chomont insists his films are created entirely for the audience whose interpretation stands side by side with his own.

ITEM 1981.051 – available for viewing in the Research Centre

Videos, Artworks and Artists Cited

Phases of the Moon: the Parapsychology of Everda Life – Tom Chomont

Songs – Stan Brakhage

Songtraits – Stan Brakhage

Avocada – BIll Vehr

Brothel – Bill Vehr

Match Girl – Andy Meyer

An Early Clue to the New Direction – Andy Meyer

Normal Love – Jack Smith

Un Chant d'Amour – Jean Gênet

Night Blossoms – Tom Chomont

The Cat Lady – Tom Chomont

Ophelia – Tom Chomont

Flames – Tom Chomont

Morpheus in Hell – Tom Chomont

T,O,U,C,H.I,N,G – Paul Sharits

A Persian Rug – Tom Chomont

Oblivion – Tom Chomont

Fireworks – Kenneth Anger

Minor Revisions – Tom Chomont

Mouse in our Face – Tom Chomont

twice a Man – George Markopolous

Untitled – Tom Chomont

Portret – Tom Chomont

Aria – Tom Chomont

Lijn II – Tom Chomont

abda – Tom Chomont

Re:birth – Tom Chomont

Tom Chomont

Love Objects – Tom Chomont

Re:incarnation – Tom Chomont

The Heavens – Tom Chomont

Earth – Tom Chomont

Space Time Studies – Tom Chomont

Minor Revisions – Robert Beavers

The Count of Days