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For over a decade, Ottawa animator and independent
filmmaker Dan Sokolowski has been quietly assembling an accomplished
body of work. His sixth and most recent film, ShoreLines, is
an understated and effective investigation of the cinema's ability
to represent the world while simultaneously altering our perceptions
of it. Sokolowski integrates these open-ended theoretical questions
into his filming of three metal sculptures ( a man, a bird, a caribou)
by Ontario artist William
Conly. Filmed on the rugged shores on Lake Superior, the three
sculptures are observed, recorded, even sculpted cinematically by
Sokolowski's acute sense of composition. Regarded by the camera from
various angles in varying degrees of proximity, the sculptures are
also juxtaposed in Sokolowski's editing to suggest imagined interactions.
In its deceptively simple construction, ShoreLines explores the rich
implications of context, perspective and spatial orientation in manufactured
images. The film also ponders how the camera affects how we see what
we see in suprising ways. Within its minimalist and seemingly conservative
style, Sokolowski's ShoreLines asks radical questions about
how we look at the world, with or without the camera.
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