Four Siblings

Video-based research project by Lisa Stuckey

Video, 23min.
The 8mm & Super 8 films are from the archive of Elisabeth S.
In German, English subtitles.

A filmic archive of family celebrations, birthdays, farewells, journeys, pets, fishing, and so on. What constitutes the perspective of the film-maker? What eludes her or his sight?

Four stories, all of which are somehow one – of a family in the second half of the twentieth century between Austria, Germany, and the United States. Utilising the amateur medium Super 8, the work examines how the genre of the family video reflects and idealises the family system. The audio track contrasts with the beautiful images. The archival material functions as evidence, as well as an objet trouvé; the loss of quality within the resolution through repeated dubbing is an integral part of it. The addition of a commentary over the image track corresponds to the strategies of film essays, associating silent images and memory.

Published in the  Journal for Artistic Research, JAR 12 (2016) (peer-reviewed): Haunted by last season’s video letters. Amateur films performing spectrality

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