B&W reversal
developer
& fix

contact
&
optical
printing

Bolex shutter speed

farenheit
celsius

caffenol
B&W developing with instant coffee

basic B&W silver/gelatin emulsion

Cyanotype formula for 16mm film

flatbed contact printing

do-it-yourself attitude as strategy for innovation

In the world of contemporary celluloid practice a "model of self-skilling," is now necessary for the continuation of photochemical filmmaking among future generations of artists. A Do-It-Yourself attitude gives a chance to reinvent the medium in an image that was neither intended nor desired by it’s commercial exploiters.

Although photochemical film is now largely considered insignificant and ill-suited to a modern society of efficiency, instantaneity, and convenience, its cumbersome machinery, awkward manual interventions, and time-consuming processes nonetheless remain a desirable form of image-making among large numbers of contemporary artists.

We are now at a time that alternative infrastructures and practices allows artists to control and reinvent every stage of the once-industrial process of production. The new sense of freedom and liberation to which this shift has given rise reframes film as a field of discovery, a photochemical playground that offers itself to the artist in the rawness and malleable nature of its physicality. It is this fascination with materials that increasingly characterizes celluloid film culture, particularly through engagements with the past as a means of reinvention and projection towards a potential future.