Man on the road art project 1988

This was an art project I created while at University of Western Sydney visual arts course sometime in 1988. I was interested in playing with layers of different media. I started with a simple idea or image and then pushed it to the limit while finding new ways of expression. The story behind this video is a night driving through the city of Sydney with friends and catching a glimpse of a man on the corner of a street standing while looking at his dog who was lying down on the sidewalk. It was just a few seconds that I saw the image so I'm not sure about the details. I tried to recreate the image in a painting that can be seen briefly in the video. This gave me an idea to make a film. I dressed up in a coat an a hat and filmed myself bending down picking up the leash of the dog. The image was filmed on Super 8 film which I then manipulated with sandpaper and scratched with pins to create a psychedelic effect. The film was then transferred to video (VHS cassette) and more effects were added using a Fairlight Video Editing Computer which we had at the university. The road scenes were shot on VHS video cassette at the back of the University with my friends driving and me filming. One of the guys was dressed up in the coat, a hat and a latex mask. He played the man on the road. I still have the original cassette so I decided to re-edit the footage using modern computer based software. I used the music by Soft Machine as this was the original soundtrack for the film back in 1988 and I still think the music suits the mood of this film. The original footage is pretty much as it was then, just re-edited to make it a bit shorter and I added the titles.