At the turn of the XX century, Ricciotto Canudo, one of the earliest film theoreticians, claimed that cinema was the 7th art. In his Manifesto of the 7 arts, he defines cinema as the fusion of the arts of space and time. Pablo Diartinez & Erik Parys explore this concept in Pages of ALBUM by claiming the cinema screen as a hybrid space to combine poetry, narrative, painting and graphic arts.
The hybrid nature of the screen is particularly addressed by subverting film post-production into a digital plastic practice that claims the still frame as an autonomous oeuvre. Film composting is used at times to shape and model (as Van Eyck would built up transparent layers of oil paints —glazes— to achieve depth), to fragment the space (referencing cubism) or to combine different photographic sources with paint and design (as Rauschenberg or Warhol). As such, every shot and scene in this film series is conceived with the ulterior objective of being later shaped into a collection of physical artifacts, art prints made out of cotton and durable mineral pigments, each alike an unique oil painting.
Printed Digigraphie, The Shelter, variation 323
Most of these cinematic tableaus are comprised by hundreds of still frames, thus issuing hundreds of unique variations on the same subject. These prints are sold for the most accessible prices. Some tableaus however are very short, while some sections of shots are particularly rare and have only dozens, a few, or even only one variation —scarcity drives up the price and these images are more expensive.