Baltic Analog Lab invites you to a two day 16mm film workshop with French filmmaker Erwan Tracol who will dive into two cameraless techniques – balck and white chemigram and colour rayogram creating 16mm film loops that later on will be presented at Tabula Rasa event on December 17 at BAL residency with participants of the workshop.

A chemigram, a term coined by Belgian artist Pierre Cordier in the 1950s, is an experimental camera-less technique where an image is made by painting with chemicals on light-sensitive paper. It is a unique process that uses resists on photographic paper much the same way as wax is used as a resist in batik. What Cordier discovered in 1956 was that a resist can hold back the chemical effects of developer and fixer on black and white photo paper for a time.

In this workshop we will introduce participants to the fundamentals of chemigrams and how it can be applied to 16mm moving image film.

The chemigram process is actually very simple, using common household ingredients and common darkroom chemistry, even expired ones. There is no end to experimentation with this nonfigurative, physico-chemical process.

Rayogram is a historic cameraless photographic process that does not require use of a camera and exposes objects on a photo sensitive surface. It was mostly used and known by Man Ray who developed series of cameraless work which he called “reyogram”.

Whilst Man Ray’s technique uses mainly black and white process, we will apply the method by using colour film and colour chemistry.

Programme

In this hands-on workshop, participants will:

- Learn the history, chemistry, and creative possibilities of chemigrams and colour rayograms

- Experiment with the process on black and white and colour 16mm film

- Explore techniques with various resists and using them to shape nonfigurative moving images

- Get an introduction into hand-processing black-and-white and colour film stock

All necessary film, chemistry and tools will be provided during the workshop, but participants are also encouraged to bring their own items from home to use as resists, like sticky tapes, organic materials like teas, brown sugar, spices, lace, sparkles, color filters, prisms, photo negatives, and plants

Erwan Tracol is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Nantes, France. He is a member of the artist-run film lab Mire, where he learned to love and experiment with silver-based emulsion. His practice is focused on cameraless cinema techniques, the plasticity of celluloid and his relation to memories.

Participation fee: 60 EUR

Number of participants: 10

Apply by sending an email to: balticanaloglab@gmail.com