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Coming to filmmaking from a background in the arts, primarily
sculpture, but also photography and installation, Margaret Honda is led
by process and materials. Her films like Spectrum Reverse Spectrum and Equinox
are realized within the commercial Hollywood setting on 70mm, not a
staple format for experimental filmmakers. Yet the films are the
furthest from what one comes to expect from Hollywood filmmaking.
The
conceptually rigorous process-based films bring into focus an aspect of
industrial filmmaking practice that is rarely known, if at all– the use
of timing tapes in print generation. Realizing the productive potential
of these tapes and working closely with technicians in the industrial
setting, these cameraless and frameless films, printed without a film
negative, enunciate a way of dealing with pure color.
In her 35mm film Color Correction,
the title referring back to the process of its making, we are able to
conceive of a film that is sensitive to its emulsion and underscores an
idea of a standard with respect to color in the film industry, achieved
through careful calibration of light valve intensities. Her 16mm film Wildflowers,
unburdened from its representational duties, the stock having simply
expired, is an imageless film that salvages its indexical potential
through the use of a voice.
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