This issue brings together films that follow color as matter in motion—migrating across rock, textile, skin, celluloid, data, and every surface that holds a mark. From ancient dyes and industrial chemicals to biological pigments, light-sensitive reactions, and accidental residues, the works in PIGMENTO explore how color is produced, altered, preserved, and erased—tracing its material, scientific, and poetic lives.
One natural element mirrors another in this dreamlike landscape, as conflicting movements of light and shadow reveal a fractured, expressive scene. Water, light, air, and flora layer congruously to create new visual perspectives, while our minds try to reassemble the familiar images and textures tha
In the nest of the sun, Xolotl, Huitzilin and Xochitl meet to recover the dance of radiation, whose colourful heat stirs the new fire of their cosmic dance. Music by Gustavo Nandayapa
Interweaving the forms of personal filmmaking, abstract animation, and the rock opera, this animated musical documentary examines the rise and fall of a nearly-defunct poster and postcard wholesale business; the changing role of physical objects and virtual data in commerce; and the division (or lac
Remar el Azul (Rowing the Blue) documents the live extraction of indigo pigment carried out at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca in 2015 as part of Cromática, a site-specific project honoring traditional processes of color production. Using the ancestral "three vats" technique,
After the death of his grandmother, a Mexican biologist living in New York returns to his hometown nestled in the majestic monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán after many years. The journey forces him to confront past traumas and reflect on his new hybrid identity, launching him on a person
Observational Short film from NW Namibia. Over the years I have consistently used raw pigment in my drawing and sculptural work. In Namibia I was introduced to the way in which the Himba women use red pigment rubbed onto their skin. This has both an aesthetic and protective value for them. Through a
Gilles, suffers from a glaucoma, an eye disease that causes a gradual and irreversible loss of sight. Over the past few months, the last traces of sharpness have faded away. Slowly, his glaucoma transmutes into an enigmatic group performance. Guided through a hazy audio description voice, they seem
Serene Hues , hand-processed, solarized, tinted, and toned, is a meditative journey into the tranquility and vibrant beauty of nature. The surprising and unexpected images created through process-driven filmmaking, which is improvisational and interactive, embody the wabi-sabi aesthetic of impermane
INK (Tinta) unfolds as a poetic visual meditation on enclosure, imagination, and the persistence of desire. Conceived as the first movement of a larger cycle, the video constructs an intimate, suspended space where time folds back onto itself and the domestic interior becomes a mental, symbolic, and
Direct animation that intertwines – 'purls' together – two equal lengths of 16mm film. Purl is the term for a stitch in hand-knitting made by putting the needle through the front of the stitch from right to left; purl also means a swirling stream of water. On the strip of clear leader, c
A mother and daughter hand-wash a 100-year-old quilt in order to restore and preserve it. The quilt was made by the filmmaker's great-grandmother, who hand-stitched together old chicken-feed bags and other leftover materials. The film serves as a documentation of the quilt's preservation, while also
Cochineal dye on 16mm black and white reversible film. 2020. http://pablomz.info
In this film Aunty Deidre Martin reads her poem Acacia Longifolia. The sounds of Bundanon: the kookaburra, the whip bird, and the wind in the trees float in and out as she reads. A length of cloth holds the poem and corresponding imagery. It tracks through a heated dye bath where colour from Acacia
Picking wild damsons at a little piece of land : shot on 16mm film and hand processed using plant phenol developer and sea water fixative, the footage was originally exhibited as a 40 ft film loop installed in the stairwell of Shirethorne House, one of Hull's historic former retail buildings, now us
Shot in Quebec (Canada), La noirceur souterraine des racines (The subterranean blackness of roots) is a 16 mm film triptych which uses several processes specific to analog cinema (hand processing, optical printing, photochemical alteration). The film seeks to show the sensory experience of the invis
Pulse was a sound action on an urban, collective and feminist scale. It consisted of the journey of more than 200 women through the Mexico City Metro, beating drums that generated a sound like a flow that simultaneously referred to memory and the present. With their hands stained with scarlet cochin
The video Turbulence in a Channel is inspired by Friedrich Ahlborn's (1858-1937) research on currents, but also by techniques of photographic imaging of water surfaces or lines of force.
The 19th C botanist Anna Atkins used the cyanotype process to capture the plants she studied and in so doing produced the first published work that was accompanied by photographs. The process is simple and also reminiscent of magic through the mixing of two liquids that become a light sensitive poti
The first dive-in of a Monarch butterfly wing revealing the intricate scale structure, the pigmented scales, (fuzzy) borders. The borders of the wing evoke the borders between countries, notably between Canada, US and Mexico. The soundscape was created by director Alexis Gambis in collaboration with
Reading the novel Essay on Blindness by José Saramago captivated me from the beginning due to the parallelism with John Wyndham's novel The Day of the Triffids. Both works touch on the subject of a pandemic. On the one hand, Saramago writes about a pandemic that infects people with vision los
Ceremony for Minerals is an experimental short film by artist and activist Sierra Weir. Hands breaking down earth are shown in developed and undeveloped landscapes, staining stones, skin, and a white linen dress. Each action has a lasting impact, and the nature of deep time is bent with the erratic
An experimental film essay about a found (stolen?) photograph, a hurricane, and film's inherent ability to animate and re-animate still, dead, and inanimate beings, images, and objects. The film is created using an ink-jet direct-on-film technique where the digital frame is printed directly onto ont
The digital is often thought to be synonymous with improvement and permanence. However, encoding and decoding digital information modifies its object, causing data loss. Dwelling in imperfect transmission and nonlinearity, Lossy Recollections embraces digital regression in combination with analog de
Searching for Blue is a Peruvian documentary short film from 2004, directed by Fernando Valdivia, that explores the personal life of Víctor Churay, an Indigenous painter from the Bora community. The documentary won the Anaconda Grand Prize in 2004. This biographical short film focuses on the
In True Colours, x-ray radiology imaging exposes the internal anatomy of the human body whilst a passage from Gerald Murnane's Border Districts (2017) is read. The passage describes an 'inner luminous essence' emanating from a 'glass-like entity' with 'a skull not of bone but of translucent glass'.
Light cracks and chemical abrasions on a celluloid wandering. Each immutable essence disintegrates with every frame, slowly waning into no-selfhood. The old man and the old woman wilt in the candlelight.
An obsession, a fleeting image, a longing: the home as a romanticized, idealized place of intimacy, insistently inhabiting the most personal sphere, the territory of dreams and memories, of fantasy and desire. Using a short segment from personal home-movies (edited and reproduced multiple times) as
The images, whose finely chiselled materiality recalls the surface of the human skin, explore the experience of physical contact. Dark ink spots cover the paper background, disrupting its clear white colour. Flashing colours and an electrifying sound make the sensation of touch tangible. The extreme
The audience is invited to clap every time they see the word "negative" on screen. An attempt at celebrating negative test results while acknowledging the inherent failure of the same diagnostic tests for people living with chronic pain.
Cochineal (Dactylopius Coccus) is a beetle, endemic to the Americas, that lives in the nopal cacti (Opuntia) produces carminic acid to deter predators that also makes it an important pigment source. Cultivated since pre-Hispanic times, cochineal is still the only natural source of red and pink pigme
"It Was Not the Color" is a contemplative and experimental work that invites a journey through the landscapes of skin, its textures, contours, and shades. Through close-up shots of bodies with varied tones - black, white, brown - the video questions our relationship to skin, between heritage and con
The seductive gazes with which Fergie, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé and Katy Perry once pierced the camera, reach us through a whirlwind of reproduction and deformation. Their images deconstructed so far that halftone dots become visible, their iconic Y2K pop hits collapsed into
La Molienda (The Grinding), 2015 – 2022. Installation and Performance, 18 old stone metates, grana cochineal ground and HD video. Variable measures A group of women grinds cochineal on metates, leaving the pigment as a record of the performative action. The sound of that task becomes the prota
In rural Alabama, Freedom Farm Azul serves as a sanctuary for nourishment, education, and healing. Through intimate interviews and lush imagery, this poetic documentary reveals how land stewardship becomes an act of resistance, restoration, and collective care.
A color explosion sparkles, bubbles and fractures in this hand-crafted 16mm film. Reeves utilized an array of mediums and direct-on-film techniques to create this boisterous, psychedelic morsel of cinema as material. Reeves' soundtrack mixes samples from rusty, dusty old machines, records and electr
This experimental animation features the enigmatic bodies of dyed crystals grown by Maria Ferreira and by Dr. Bart Kahr, the lead scientist at the Kahr Research Group who has worked on growing these types of crystals throughout the past 30 years. The film is an embroidery of thousands of crystals do
The Chinese village of Dafen was once a place where thousands of professional painters made reproductions of Western masterpieces. At the government's instigation, these artists now paint their own original works. Their paintings hang all over China, in a wide variety of settings, from hospitals to
Violet Gave Willingly immerses us in the colourful world of textile artist Deborah Dumka, inviting viewers to witness the unflinchingly intimate details of her artistic process and inner life. Nestled in a cluttered studio by the sea, we witness an artist at work on a project that delves into a past
There is an incredible depth to Sohn Koo-young's images—levels of both contrast and detail that would seem antithetical. They are so close to stills, if it weren't for the movement. Night Walk's compositions evoke a point-and-click PC game; the shots are locked off precisely and the details be
Western Sunburn is a re-photography in video of material that was originally used in a performance during which Karl Lemieux, painted, scratched and burned film loops from an old western 16mm film. Traces of an impossible past and future collide in a trajectory where the present unravels.
Performed by Frankie Tillo and Jens Kuross This 16mm music video combines atmospheric footage and performance with chemically altered film to evoke themes of loss, longing, and grief. Film emulsion was treated with a bleach solution in order to partially damage and remove sections of the image. The
Zapotec and Zoque residents of Oaxacan town Niltepec process the mesmerizing blue pigment known as añil or indigo from the jiquilite plant (Indigofera suffruticosa). Despite the challenges of climate change and lack of government support, residents of all ages are returning to this ancient pr
The materiality of reversal-film material is being portrayed. This analogue technology, with its exposed chemical skeleton is clashing in an anachronistic filmic gag with contemporary digital animation. Colour is presented not as a natural, but a highly constructed medium in the expierence of film.
Through a structuralist and simultaneously ambiguous form, the image's reality treads closer to the abstract, leaving the sunset and trees behind. As we enter the image's gloaming, it reveals its true eye: reality's pure haptic energy, where there is nothing but sonorous light, and the dregs of the
Play of abstract forms, patterns, rhythms and sounds. "Quimtai" is an abstract Animation based upon pre-colombian patterns of the now extinct Tairona and Quimbaya indigenous cultures of Colombia and is also inspired by the german absolute cinema. The animation was laser engraved directly onto 35mm B
Shot in Brooklyn, NY, this short video follows me from the street to the studio to the page as I create watercolor paint from the tough, weedy plants who green urban and disturbed habitats. It offers a rumination on the process, product and implications of my ongoing Feral and Invasive Pigments proj
An improvisation, a poem, a song, blue nights in Palm Desert. Inspired by the films of Vincent Grenier , magicians, Rebecca Solnit, and "Yves Klein Speaks!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of
A celluloid deterioration that addresses the ephemeral quality of the captured moment (the present) while revealing the insistent power of human presence in even the most deteriorated of states. The image of the mother is like a ghost that we won't let go. A lament for the inevitable loss of legibil
Two women connected by mysterious forces cross paths at the edge of the world.
The Indigo Factory is a journey through the rich tapestry of indigo-making and subsequent processing into fabric, set against the backdrop of India's colonial history, which transformed an artisanal occupation into mass production in factories. This project is a homage to the legacy of indigo, a dye
This is a stop motion animation of antique kimono textiles from the Nishijin district in Kyoto. It was filmed on super 8 in Kyoto by Michael Lyons and Haruka Mitani. The soundtrack was created by Michael Lyons and Palle Dahlstedt using the Octopus analogue audio-visual interface. The synthesizer fol
A nonfiction reflection on being out of the closet. As a queer person of color, it's taken me a long time to be as comfortable as I am through navigating forms of intimacy, gender, and self worth. It doesn't always get better, but you're beautiful however you decide to present, including the choice
Inspired by Phil Morton's classic 1976 video, "Colorful Colorado", as well as Panzarino's first artist's residency at Signal Culture's new studio space in Loveland, Colorado. Panzarino processes footage of a drive through Rocky Mountain National Park using Signal Culture's Wobbulator, Jones MVIP Eur
Tatjana is a 93 years old painter who is slowly losing her eyesight. She tries to adapt to a changing landscape that is becoming more challenging with each day. Even though her world gets shrouded with shadows, the painter in her tries to figure out the different layers of colours that are left in i
Blood, Sea, Film is an experimental short by Mexican filmmaker Andrés García Franco that contemplates the elemental ties between water, life, and existence. Through poetic imagery and sound, the film reflects on the sea as both a source of vitality and a symbol of fragility, evoking a
Despite the seemingly innocuous gestures of household life, a dark, unmanageable world seems to want to erupt from it. At one point it literally does: in a stunning image, the milk the mother pours for her son overflows the glass onto the table, the floor, and eventually down the hall in an endless
A moving image that moves through a still photograph. Created by photocopying details of an enlarged 35mm photograph directly onto clear 35mm film leader.
A faux documentary about the ongoing social, political and economical crisis in Brazil, where the government cuts the colors of Rio de Janeiro, turning the city black and white.
Tonalli is cinema as ritual, with pulsating images, the rhythm of the music and the ecstasy of light flashing in a darkened room. The film has three movements: Xochiyáoyotl (the 'Flower war'), Tlecacitl (a solar-lunar ceremony where Xolotl, the god of lightning and death, emerges) and Tonalli
An extrapolation of medical data and bio-imaging techniques. Here, the subject is removed and the extracted body remains unseen.
In the 80s, a man named Wayne Powars stumbled upon the oldest known mine in the Americas. Some of the first people on this continent were mining for sacred red ochre 10,000 - 15,000 years ago in eastern Wyoming. The archeology site was almost destroyed by modern iron mines, but is now helping archae
This video was made to present my moving image work. I want to thank with it my family and friends, thanking specially, Nelson Carlo for his critical advice.
The diagnosis of an eye disorder incited this meditation on fear and beauty. Glimpses of curious and creative souls peek out of countless hand-painted film frames. Infinite colors and textures burst, blend, and challenge the primacy of uniform vision.
An experimental film about the Coalfields of Collie, southwest Western Australia by Perdita Phillips and Annette Nykiel. The film was originally made for Petrocultures 2024 (southern hemisphere/Perth), using local coal and charcoal, ochres and natural plant dyes. Sound and editing was based around s
Campo Carmín is a single-channel video that explores the material, historical, and cultural significance of grana cochinilla—the carmine pigment derived from insects native to Mesoamerica and once at the center of colonial trade networks. Filmed in Mexico, the work traces the complete c
Dawn & Dusk (2023) is an abstract exploration of the temporal space between dawn and dusk and how the dual nature of light varies on a microscopic scale through the vibrations of photons, oscillations of electromagnetic waves, and refraction and reflexion light properties. Through creative programmi
A short experimental film created using hundreds of scanned and photographed leaves animated and choreographed in time to an original banjo score. Production, animation, sound design, and editing by Phil Davis, 2017.
$75,000 highlights the biological aspect of albinism, which is a genetic and hereditary abnormality that affects not only pigmentation, bu also and above all the physical and moral conditions of people with albinism. These people are victims of discrimination, mutilation and ritual crimes in Africa.
ONE MINUTE AND FORTY SECOND FOR ANNA is a hand-coded computational video referencing generative qualities of color field painting (circa 1960s, New York City). This work explores a simple search space visualized as continual flows of pigments interacting with rough, segmented, or smooth surfaces. Th
An experimental short exploring through color the torment of the endless prairie horizon. 16mm and hand processed. Digitally scanned and edited.
Beneath the polished floors of the Triennale di Milano, the ground begins to stir—an awakening of memory and matter. Plant, prion, soil, microbe… a fissure appears, first noticed by the cleaners. What starts as a subtle disturbance evolves into SPIKA, a strange ecological disruption tha
A journey through sleep through closed eyelids: drifting slowly to sleep, the mind wanders; phosphenes change colors under rapid eye movement; stuck in sleep paralysis, the colors violently pulsate; then finally, the eyes burst open wide awake.
In the mountains of Colombia, three associations of artisans from the municipalities of Guacamayas, Sutatausa, and Curití recount their experience using the coca leaf as a natural dye through the Tinta dulce (Sweet Ink) project. Despite its classification since 1961 on the United Nations Sche
Artist Brice Bischoff documents the long cinematic history of the Bronson Caves into a single, durational image. This "Plato's Cave in the Hollywood Hills" is a site of illusions, crafted for a form of capitalism unique to Los Angles: television shows and movies. Here, Bischoff uses the poorest of e
Over the years I have consistently used raw pigment in my drawing and sculptural work. In Namibia I was introduced to the way in which the Himba women use red pigment rubbed onto their skin. This has both an aesthetic and protective value for them. Through an unexpected meeting with 3 Himba women in
A two-channel 16mm fever dream that filters queerness, desire, diaspora, and dislocation through beat-driven montage and personal ritual. Hookup sounds, Bollywood drag fantasy, comic books, candy, and club pulses form a swirling fugue of self-reflection. A confessional chase-scape through fractured
Film loops produced using natural dye and plant stuffs applied directly to 16mm film strip. Digital telecine from 16mm film. All films explore analogies between textile dyeing and film production processes. The work was produced as a part of Ditchling Museums natural dye workshops with Jenny Dean an
blóm + blóð (Icelandic for flowers + blood ) is an 8-minute silent digital video that presents performance as embodied research, situating the landscape as laboratory and studio. Created during a month-long residency at the Icelandic Textile Centre in Blönduós, the work
A fragmentary scene observing the indigo dye process through gestures, materials, and time. The piece attends to what is seen and what is sensed, exploring dye-making as a meditative, embodied practice.
A cosmic, sensorial dance between moon and ocean, forests and rivers. Shot on iPhone, combined with superimposed paintings and drawings by the artist, and rephotographing techniques.
Solar pulses bloom across retinal veins, like coral branching. Fractures in film spark like distant stars. Sunspots drift as debris - voids in our vision. A film suspended between the vast and the intimate, the macro and the micro.
La Restauradora (The Restorer) recreates the color palette that would have been used in the pictorial representation of some of the most significant changes in the 14th century to the present day at the coordinates 19 ° 26'07.0 "N 99 ° 07'55.2 "W, where the Cultural Center Seminario 12 is lo
Spheres of reality in conflict. Nature being structured in the mode of logic and science, and human affairs in the mode of story and narrative. Branching out through the forking canopy, a chorus of groaning trees beckons as the light refracts illuminating portals for one to enter. The imagery was ac
In the temple of film, we are invited to peel back our eyelids and stare straight into the sun. We are here to worship the light in the darkness, the lunar and solar rituals that move the body into fits of dance. For the initiated, a manifestation of the cult of cinema. Music composed by Lluvia de p
Celestial spheres morph into a drizzle of flowers and leaves: translucent, buoyant and dreamlike. With an inquisitive, meditative score by Kim Kwangseok of sparse folk and lingering tolling of bells, Flower Rain is a photochemical, X-ray journey through the compositions and cosmic gateways of bloom.