All the Faces are Us: An Interview with Tom Chomont
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