Chooc Ly Tan

I am a French-born Afro/Vietnamese/Cambodian creature. I was mostly raised by my mother, in the suburbs of Paris. She was a seamstress, alternating with moments of unemployment. We lived in a housing project, with my sister and my brother, in a very multi-cultural and working class environment. I grew up watching kung fu movies, Japanese animations, playing video games, riding my BMX and drawing. I also practiced karate for 5 years. Then I became obsessed with reading and writing. At 18, I begun studying modern literature at the Sorbonne. After 2 months, I gave up and moved to London with 500 francs (£50) in my pocket; I slept at the hostel. And phewww! I quickly found a cash-in-hand job, washing dishes and pans in a Soho restaurant. Then I worked in a factory, then a number of restaurants and bars. I was also a party animal and hang out a lot with ravers and DJs. Then I studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins (2006), focusing mostly on sculpture and installation. At the end of the program, I started incorporating videos into my 3D work. Then I moved to Reykjavik (Iceland) where I lived for 2 years (2007-2009). There, I worked as a bartender, a set designer, a touristic guide and a fisherman. I did a lot of road trips around the country whilst making a series of videos. Then I returned to London, to do a Master of Fine Art at Goldsmiths (2011). In the meantime, I also became a DJ.

Almost everything but mostly classical and theoretical physics, science fiction, activism, rebellion, weird landscapes and music. But for more details:

My practice is informed by progressive research in fields, such as Chaos Theory and Synchrony. Many of my works present a “surrealist” take on this manifest reality. In the past, I have worked with Quantum Theory researchers, drawing parallels between their legitimate fields of study and the narrative extravagancies found in science fiction. Also, I love watching the making-of (behind-the-scene) of sci-fi movies and magic shows.

Recently, I have been interested in how race and gender have become other systems, used to make sense of the physical reality. As a brown female artist from a working class background, I have been made aware of my own “characteristics”, when privileges are given upon a “chart” defined by race, gender and class. So I read, watch and listen anything to do with social justice and activism. I am a big fan of senegalese writer Fatou Diome, author of The Belly of the Atlantic. She gave enlightening lectures proposing efficient solutions for the process of decolonisation. Also, Martinican Psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon is one of my hero.

I am interested in optimism and positive technology as forms of activism. I look into futuristic architecture, product and graphic design, and, Afrofuturism. I listen to niche music produced outside the West. I’m interested in mad topology in nature, and vulnerable and intense landscapes.

It varies. Generally, I do A LOT of research. Sometimes I can’t sleep because of my hyperactive brain that processes the first ideas. In these moments, I get up and try to put these ideas on a notebook, writing, making storyboards and / or diagrams.

I like setting a list of parameters, similar to a plan of action, to improve the quality of my productions. I write this list on a whiteboard or digital document that I commit myself to check regularly throughout the process. Here are examples of possible parameters: “have textures”, “build a climax”, “don’t overdo the flares, otherwise it will become hmmm!”, “do not compromise”.

Sometimes, I’d collect homemade and found audio-visual materials that I use directly, or, let to ferment for ages until it becomes relevant to a project.

I am working on a video, in collaboration with Icelandic-based artist, radiopresenter and adventurer Svavar Jonatansson. Last year, we used his Nikon D800, and filmed ourselves interacting with outdoor warehouse spaces. We did it on the outskirts of Reykjavik, while playing loud music from his car stereo. One of the tracks was mine; otherwise we played a lot of techno. He did a first edit of the video and it’s already super kuul! Now it’s my turn to have a go. We work remotely but we will sometimes be in the same city. He was in London last week. I am going to Reykjavik at some point in the spring. Also…literally I just started working on a satirical, political and upbeat video. It will premier at the next Euronoize event, on 23 May in London. Also-also,I am working on my first EP – I am making super hybrid music. One of them as a zouk (Creole music) kind of beat, with a very electronic feel to it, and my own voice.

Chooc Ly Tan’s portfolio →

Aimée Neat

Growing up mum was a mobile hairdresser, and dad was a primary school teacher. Seemingly a non-artistic, non-performing background, but parents and family are all natural performers, comedians, creators and crafts people. Their perspectives are comic driven, political, analytical, highly creative and resourceful, so all of my principle artistic training comes from them. This combined with their encouragement, and the freedom they always gave me to play.

Artists who take risks, who don’t care if you like it, who pull on the autobiographical to bring an audience something truly authentic and unique. Also theatricality, and the use of human performance to bring us closer to realising a human truth. Outside of art, I am deeply influenced by comedy, also music, and maybe poetry I guess.

By being excited by an idea that won’t leave me, that stays by my side until a relationship grows. I guess I begin to break it down into practicalities, how I can resource and produce elements of what I can see in my mind. Then there’s the research into the subject source material, how I will mimic or impersonate or abstract, I start collecting found media content, or taking photographs for example. Then maybe visiting locations, audio recording, reading, writing. And lots of talking to collaborators or friends! Whatever encourages development and then abstraction.

My version of a first proper short film. The first time I’m going to work with a crew and a cinematographer, a composer, and am currently working with a script writer. It’s very early days but I’m very excited!

Aimée Neat’s portfolio →

Max Colson

I originally studied English Literature; I worked in advertising for five years; I did an MA in Documentary Photography; I had a funded year as an artist in residence at the Bartlett School of Architecture; I’ve worked as a freelance documentary photographer since 2013 alongside all of this. I also now teach on the MA Graphic Communication Design at Central Saint Martins in London. The latter is all about helping students use process-led design research to make work that explores the relationship between form and the circulation of knowledge, as well as parameters of that subject.

All of these experiences come together to provide a particular interdisciplinary context to my current film-making.


These provide some of the frame of reference to my work: Hito Steyerl, Taryn Simon, Breugel (both of them), Sophie Calle, Nick Briz, Walid Raad, Lawrence Lek, Patrick Keiller.

I will usually start with lots of desk research around a theme or question. I’ll then spend ages trying to find the right ‘documentary’ story, which will then lead to gathering vast amounts of visual and textual source material. At the same time, I’m usually visually experimenting with motion graphics and trying to form a script. This experimentation will also inform my research in quite a major way. Whenever it happens, the visual making acts as the filter and synthesis for the source material.

I’m working on a project looking at exploring how the UK is speculating on its future outside of the European Union. I’m very interested in using specialist video editing and animation techniques to filter through and respond to all the material that’s been produced over the last few years.

Another project I’m working on is exploring the effect of ‘Micro Homes’ (homes which are made below current minimum space standards) in the UK on their occupants.

I’m also very interested in progressing the experimental film work I’ve done to date using Lidar 3D scanning technology. You can see a previous example of this in my film London Knowledge maxcolson.com/portfolio/londonknowledge.

All of these projects will take a lot of time though so I’m applying for funding and looking for commissions. Please feel free to get in touch if you think there’s a suitable project.

Max Colson’s portfolio →

Tyler Winther

Filmmaking has always been a part of my life. I grew up on film sets and watched the best people in the world make movies. It wasn’t until I turned 23 that I decided to try making one of my own. For the 13 years prior I had been training in Classical Piano, guitar and electric bass. Music is my first love, but movie making both narrative and conceptual captured my imagination a few years ago and hasn’t let go. A few projects into my career I realized I make movies so I can score them.

All sorts of things. Architecture. Photography. Music. Paintings. Books. Great Conversations. Arguments. The sound of someone’s voice. The way the light hits a street corner at mid-day. Influence subconsciously seeps into me at anytime, anywhere, in any form. It’s not until I make something that I look in the rear view and realize what exactly it was.

A new work comes seemingly at random. It sneaks up on me, whispers something in my ear that makes my hair stand on end, and runs off. The work you see are the little whispers I cared enough to catch. That Whisper and I sit down for a few months and go back and forth with one another until we feel confident enough to yell our crazy idea from the rooftops until the next one comes along.

Narratively, I’m working on a screenplay about the American Dustbowl Crisis which I will turn into a movie. On the conceptual side, I’m waiting on the right whisper to come along.

Tyler Winther’s portfolio →

Ralph Pritchard

I have lived in London all my life. At 19 I left a film BA and started freelancing as a videographer for lots of political causes and I got heavily involved in journalism. Then I left that stuff quite abruptly and became a participant at the School of the Damned, an alternative fine art course based all across the UK, completely self-organised by the students. Now I’m at the Royal College of Art doing an MA pathway entitled Critical Practice.

Many of my influences are from cinema. Fassbinder’s work remains very compelling for its rawness and strength of feeling. Andrei Tarkovsky has always amazed me. I think that ability to make invisible sensations visible is basically the highest aim of cinema. I realised that when I started trying to involve instant messages into my moving image work.

I’d recommend people check out Andrzej Żuławski too – his films have this crazed energy that I really vibe with. There are too many people trying to make films about normal people, I catch myself leaning towards it sometimes too. I think art is uniquely positioned to capture the weird and the irrepressible.

I have my best ideas when I’ve just seen a piece of work I really love. That’s the stuff that fills up notebooks. It’s all too easy to gravitate towards things that are dissatisfying and try and negotiate with them, but the feeling of connecting with a great work is far stronger.

Early ideas get channelled into hasty outlines. The general structure of a narrative usually spills out in a few minutes. Then it can be months of fine-tuning and experimentation.

There’s a few things: a project about climate breakdown and parental resentment, another about an ASMR artist. Because I’ve just finished my short film On Your Terms, I’m back in the writing phase. The challenge now is managing the about-ness of the work, and finding out the format. Right now I’m testing things out.

Ralph Pritchard’s portfolio →

Kristian Skylstad

I have a degree in photography and a Master in Arts. I’ve been one of the main contributors in the independent art scene in Oslo, curating, running galleries, writing and trying to change the hierarchies and structures of the local art scene, while still attempting to make art that is relevant in a global context, using the method that is available at the certain time I’m inspired to act.

Mostly I’m inspired by avantgarde movements like the French New Wave and the Italian Auteurs, especially Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni. In film Carlos Reygadas, Sharon Lockhart and Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been highly influential in my practice. I’m also very inspired by writers like Arthur Rimbaud, Roberto Bolaño and Anaïs Nin and philosophers like Gilles Deleuze, Noam Chomsky and Albert Camus. In photography Wolfgang Tillmans, William Klein and William Eggleston are very influential. Félix González-Torres and Marcel Duchamp forces me to still relate to readymades. John Maus keeps my blood pumping.

I dwell deeply on certain topic, place or phenomenon, sometimes for years, then I manically execute whatever I’m urged to do, when the procrastination has been going on for too long, and the urge becomes too severe. My process is highly bipolar, so I try to work as little as possible, since it’s mostly unhealthy for me. I feel that an artist shouldn’t make just for the sake of making, but rather follow his instincts when it feels absolutely necessary, an attitude that often leads to highly productive phases follow by great lapses of meditative states, which again feeds new production. Almost like a Buddhist I hope this cycle one day stops, and I can be content with just being a witness to the whole caboodle, doing almost nothing, understanding a lot.

I’m preparing a book with 777 portraits of the Cambodian population, emulating the photographs by Nhem En, who photographed the victims of the genocide in the ’70s, I’ve gone to all 26 provinces of Cambodia, trying to make a new and hopeful history, giving voice to the survivors of the tragic history of the country and their children, igniting a hopeful scenario for the crazy, amazing and beutiful Khmer people. After I’m done with that I’m going to walk around with my Sony A7RII and my Voigtländer lens, recording life Cinéma vérité style, mostly at night, and write notes for a new beginning in a moleskin, maybe.

Kristian Skylstad’s portfolio →

Liddy Scheffknecht

I studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris.



There are a lot of artists that I admire and some of them might have had influenced my work, like James Turrell or Roman Signer. I was always interested in architecture and the role artificial and natural light plays in buildings. Urban Art has a great impact on my work as well and often I connect my work with literature, especially folk tales, literary fairy tales and myths.



Often I’m inspired by the space. The light, the architecture, the interior design and objects I find in the space. Sometimes I also start with the function of the building for which I’m creating the work for or the geopolitical context of a place.




I’m working on an outdoor sculpture that will be permanently shown in the alpine area.

Claudia Larcher

I studied Transmedia Arts and Sculpture in Vienna but also have a background in Graphic Design. My job as a visual artist in a club for electronic music, was the beginning for my experiments with live video and the interaction between sound and light.

Pipilotti Rists video art and installations are a great inspiration for me, as well as the art of Kurt Schwitters and Gordon Matta-Clark. Architecture in general and some film makers like Maya Deren, Claire Denis and David Lynch.

Usually I get inspired by traveling. I try to work on a project in a different area for a longer period of time. Surrounded by different architecture, the results are often video works that deal with real and / or utopian living spaces and their inhabitants.

I am working on a Virtual Reality project, that deals with architecture and our own personal perception. I am also interested in the gap between digital and analogue. Grown up between these two worlds I sometimes feel alienated. In my opinion this kind of dilemmas is always a good starting point for a new work.

Bernd Oppl

It depends where I am standing or in which space I am. Sometimes my background is the city, a street, a house, a room. Sometimes it is a landscape, sometimes it is the bed where I sleep. It depends on the point of view.

I am influenced by what surrounds me. It is the architecture that surrounds me, my body as the smallest space I have to carry around, technologies that influence and change our perception of what surrounds us. So what interests me the most is this relationship between the media image, physical space, technology and our body.

It can be different things that trigger a idea and lead to a work. Sometimes it is a text, a found object, a film I watched. But also often it feels like one work leads to the other. So the process of working and experimenting is what leads to new works.

At the moment I work on a series of dioramas. those dioramas create a mise-en-scène of completely empty spaces. The viewer sees a series of 3D-Prints of non-descript spaces of transition and pause. Given their monochrome simplicity, these random places become surfaces onto which fantasies and memories can be projected.

Alberto Cabrera Bernal

My artistic interests have always been varied, although my initial calling was literature, when I studied a degree in Hispanic Philology in Madrid and published my first book of poetry, “Integrando” (Ed. Devenir, 2003). Later, I wrote “Salida al interior” (2003), to shortly thereafter abandon literature and begin to create collages with graphic images from newspapers, detritus and money. Without realising it then, the distance from there to filmmaking was minimal. Keeping in mind what Bruce Conner said about himself, I simply substituted “collage” with “montage”.

I would prefer not to talk about influences, exactly, but rather of affinities that I share with artists from different disciplines. There are many who have, at one time or another, been important to me for different reasons, the majority of those for questioning the limits of the language they used. Acrobatics with a bit of humour, I would dare to say that Palaeolithic pictorial and sculptural expressions could cohabitate with Baroque music and John Cage in my conceptual imagery, with the playful aggressions of Fluxus, the formal rigour of Structural Film, and YouTube.

Most of the time my works are linked, and I do not think I could well indicate the boundaries between them. When thinking about concepts, above all, what I really do is continue to research in a concrete direction. But sometimes it happens that new ideas materialise on occasion and show themselves without it being necessary to know of their origins. I like to think that my mental attitude is of permanent surprise at myself.

I am preparing new 16 mm films, a photographic series that should be called “antilandscape”, and various sculptural works around the concept of “Added”.