Clint Enns

Windshield Baby Gameboy Movie DV, 1'47'', 2009 Canada

Tell me something about you and artistic background.
I am a video artist/filmmaker from Winnipeg, Manitoba. My images are created using broken or outdated technologies. I have recently completed a master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Manitoba and my interests include model theory of ring and modules, structuralist film, destructuralist video and mathematics in art.  Destructural video was coined by John McAndrew and is an art movement of video and moving image artists who aestheticize the exploration of medium specific flaws which perpetrate themselves as visual and/or audible glitches in their work.

Tell me about this film, initial idea and work process.
The film consists of images of a car crash interpreted by a Nintendo Gameboy Camera.  The title is intended to be a play on Window Water Baby Moving a film by Stan Brakhage containing images of a babies' birth. In contrast, my video contains images of a babies' death. I had originally planned on titling the piece windshield to the womb since there is a pro-life video called Ultrasound: Window to the Womb and the Nintendo Gameboy Camera produces images that look like ultrasound footage.  However, I thought that this title would be too harsh. Using the Nintendo Gameboy Camera allowed me to abstract the images.  In addition, the Nintendo Gameboy Camera made the images look and sound as though they were from a video game.  The playful 8-bit sound is intended to create a juxtaposition with the harsh images of the car crash.

Do you have specific influences in your film/video making?
For sure.  My work often references other artists work.  Furthermore, I am interested in my local film/video making community. Artist run culture and community plays a vital role in my life and without independent arts organizations like Video Pool Media Arts Centre, I would probably not be making art at all.     

Why is it important for you to show your film/video in a festival?
I prefer watching films in the cinema and I assume others do as well. Festivals provide the ideal screening situation, that is, one in which the people are sitting in total darkness, surrounded by their peers, communally emerged in the work presented before them and totally free of distractions. I am convinced that without festivals artists would continue to make work, however, the work wouldn't reach the intended audience. Furthermore, since there is now an enormous amount of work being produced, it is a very important time for curators.  That is, quality curators ensure that quality work reaches the intended audiences.