Dada’s Daughter
Sara Sowell






Installation, Performance
Expanded Cinema, Live Cinema-Objects
2021 - Ongoing
Expanded Cinema, Live Cinema-Objects
2021 - Ongoing
The performance is introduced with hand-developed black and white 16mm photograms made from the imprints of microplastic stars, beads, jewelry, and other accumulated objects. This process of exposing objects directly onto celluloid is drawn from Man Ray’s “rayographs”.
Spliced in between the projected photograms are sections of clear film leader that cue a live performance re-animating the cinema-objects used to create the photograms.
—
Cinema-objects are mirrors, perforated metals, cookie cutters in the shape of stars, metal ball bearings, and disks mounted to motors that are manipulated live by the hand of the artist. When placed in front of the projector these objects create tactile optical images; impressions of form, shape and pattern that reenact the photogram process.
The presence of the photogram reel and performative qualities of this work highlight the tension between ontological concepts of cinema – the material and the ephemeral.
Spliced in between the projected photograms are sections of clear film leader that cue a live performance re-animating the cinema-objects used to create the photograms.
—
Cinema-objects are mirrors, perforated metals, cookie cutters in the shape of stars, metal ball bearings, and disks mounted to motors that are manipulated live by the hand of the artist. When placed in front of the projector these objects create tactile optical images; impressions of form, shape and pattern that reenact the photogram process.
The presence of the photogram reel and performative qualities of this work highlight the tension between ontological concepts of cinema – the material and the ephemeral.

Performance on Jaunary 15, 2022.g
Documentation: Jake Whalen
Audio Supervisor: Bennett Westlin
January 15, 2022
February 5, 2022
www.sarasowell.com/