[ Arran Tenzin Bradstock ]

I began making films at age 9 and have directed over 40 short films to date. While my early film work included black-comedies and horrors, I am now most interested in experimental areas of audio and visual art. In particular I am focused on exploring the perceived relationship between sound and image in film through chance-based audiovisual interaction.

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Over the years I have moved away from his traditional filmmaking beginnings towards a non-narrative approach largely inspired by the field of experimental music. My ultimate goal is to develop a style of filmmaking that allows sounds and images to exist as independent equals, neither audio nor video track relying on the other and neither being more important to the piece. I often takes a process-first approach when developing my films and commonly implement chance-operations into these processes (for example: using random number generators to determine the editing order, or treating the material gathering stage as an act of improvisation). I am not interested in using audiovisual material to tell stories or explore themes. Instead, my current work stems from the idea that when a film is made without meaning it can in fact lead to deeper, richer experiences as the viewer-listener has the freedom to create their own meaning through their interpretations, all of which are equally valid when the film has no inherent meaning to be grasped. In this sense, meaning can organically grow from the combination of the (meaningless) audio and visual material in the mind of each individual viewer-listener.

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Over the years my films have been screened at Irish and international festivals. Recently, 4 of my experimental films were presented as a Special Programme at the 2021 IndieCork Film Festival, under the title 'FRAMERATES & Other Works', and my film Overlap was screened at Bloomsday Film Festival 2022 in Dublin as part of the 'Experimental Film' programme. 

XENOBLAST, a film made in collaboration with experimental filmmaker Maximilian Le Cain, has been officially selected for screening at IndieCork Film Festival 2022, and Dice Roll is set to screen as part of the 'art(ist)FILM 2022' curated programme in MTU Bishopstown.

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Having completed an MA in 'Experimental Sound Practice' in University College Cork, I am currently working on a practice-based PhD in Composition where my focus is exploring and developing compositional approaches to experimental filmmaking, giving special attention to the audiovisual relationship and philosophical questions of chance, meaning and arbitrariness.

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Music also makes up an important part of my creative practice, both in terms of original music composed for my films and the experimental music I release under my music project Don't Think. I have 8 releases available on Bandcamp, 2 of which have been released on limited edition cassette by Vibrio Cholerae Records, for sale through the Depressive Illusion Records online store. My debut album 'Into The Storm' is also available on CD, for sale on Bandcamp and in several Irish music stores such as Tower Records Dublin, Bunker Vinyl Cork, and MusicZone Douglas.

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I am a tutor on the youth-based filmmaking workshops run by the organisation 'Cork Young Filmmakers'. I have tutored on these since 2017, and have also conducted several workshops through the Irish language, which I am fluent in. In 2022 and 2023 I worked as the First Cut Youth Film Festival's 'Open Day Manager'.

 

Since 2019 I have been a member of LUX Critical Forum Cork, a discussion group for artists, critics and curators who have an investment in the future of the moving image.