Lucia (2007, 48.5MB, 4:01 min) Exquisite stop motion work from Niles Atallah, Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León in Chile who ve banded together as the Diluvio Gallery. We ve shown some of Niles s great stop-motion music work here before - maybe those pieces are quite intentionally more functional , quite consciously intended as belonging to a different genre, but it seems to me this piece marks a step forward from the jaw dropping technical facility of that previous work to something of greater substance.(In fairness, as we said then, not simply technical facility but technical facility in the service of a very singular and haunting atmosphere, an atmosphere nonetheless which remains unchanging throughout each piece. Something richer, more subtle more dynamic is happening here) Some of the middle section is a bit reminiscent of Kentridge but the work nonetheless has a feel entirely its own. In that feel (the sheer bloody minded attention to detail, the strange melange of the uncanny, the wistful and the innocent, the piece s visceral impact ) rather than in actual technique or appearance it reminds me somewhat of the great Tale of Tales. I m handicapped by my lack of spoken Spanish so obviously my impressions are somewhat skewed towards the visuals (and the mood set by the voice ) If anyone has time to do a translation
