Ollie Palmer is an artist, designer and film-maker. His work critically questions control systems and contemporary use of technology, and takes place across installations, films and performances. Projects often include collaborations with scientists, dancers, and other people outside of his own discipline, and themes include the Absurd. From 2015-16 he was Pavillon artist-in-residence at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. He now lives and works in Rotterdam.
Trees of Rotterdam (2024) - A breathtaking journey through the skies, streets and trees of Rotterdam, telling the story of past, present, and possible futures of trees in the city. Filmed in a single shot, captured using high-tech point cloud scanners, the film takes the audience through the cityscape from a series of unique viewpoints. The camera moves over, under, and through the urban environment, whilst narrative from experts (an architectural historian, a tree advocate, a naturalist and the city council tree expert) offers insights into how the urban and natural can co-exist. In these times of environmental catastrophe, what can we learn from nature that already surrounds us? This film asks the audience to question their own relationship with trees: When's the last time you really looked at a tree? A collaboration with Alice Ladenburg. See treesofrotterdam.com for more information.
Time Frames (2023) - A performative essay-film about the ways in which time frames our experience, perception, and the bounds of what is, and what isn’t possible. Made using a rules-based constrained creative process, the film ties together three perspectives – that of a fictionalised Italo Calvino, a petulant contemporary artist, and the archetypical joker (as described by Alan Watts), to create a new collage which reflects on our present relationship to time.
This is the second film (after Network/Intersect) to be created using the Reflexive Scripted Design process I developed during my residency at Palais de Tokyo, and described in detail in my PhD. In this process, two textual elements, and one contextual elements, are combined via a series of absurd rules, which are followed at every stage of production to create a piece of work.
See olliepalmer.com/time-frames for more information.
Network / Intersect (2016) - A palindromic film about the production of fake news and fake profits, and the impacts they have on the people who produce them. W and M see the world differently. For W, a low-level government propagandist, objective reality is an illusion. Truth exists on a gradient and can be manipulated and distorted. For M, a financial executive, the world of business is a large image-making machine. Every business deal is just another set of mirrors or lenses to position. These abstract worldviews creep into the lived experiences of both characters, with unexpected consequences. This movie is experimental. It is a mirror, playing forwards and backwards simultaneously, the characters' worlds intersecting halfway through. The production techniques were adopted from real Russian propaganda agencies, covertly filmed in false locations, Paris standing in for Seoul. The entire form of the film and its production accurately reflect the characters' abstracted worldviews. This is the first film to be made using a process called REFLEXIVE SCRIPTED DESIGN, developed as part of my doctorate thesis work at the Bartlett School of Architecture. The entire film was created using a set of four rules ensuring that the final form reflects the film's subject. 512-second loop on dual projectors. DIRECTION, CINEMATOGRAPHY AND SCRIPT Ollie Palmer ACTORS Patrick Ng Hokyoung Im TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND MODEL MAKING Justine Emard PRODUCTION SUPPORT Chloe Fricout Justine Hermand SCRIPT CONSULTANT Abi Palmer COMMISSIONED BY Gahee Park and Fabien Danesi Seoul Museum of Art / Palais de Tokyo Shot on location in Seoul 2016 Made during my residency at Pavillon Neuflize OBC, the research lab of the Palais de Tokyo
Nybble (2013) - In 1984, philosopher John Searle asserted that there can be no such thing as “hard” artificial intelligence through the now-famous Chinese Room argument. Searle asked whether a non-Chinese speaker, locked in a room with nothing but a book with instructions for translating one Chinese symbol into another – and given the task of translating Chinese symbols passed to him on slips of paper – could ever truly learn Chinese.
The answer, according to Searle, is “no”. There is no difference between the process that the person in the Chinese room is following (i.e. manipulating symbols according to a pre-fixed routine) and the information transfer in computer systems. Thus, Searle argues, if the man in the Chinese room could never learn the meaning of the symbols he is changing, no computer could truly learn the meaning of the symbols it is manipulating, and thus, there can be no “hard” artificial intelligence.
More about the Chinese Room
This installation is a diagram of Searle’s argument; a human-computer, comprised of four dancers and an unseen controller, parse a coded message. Only the public, who are given code-sheets, can read the message over the course of a 45-minute dance. In computing terms a “Nybble” is half a byte of information – that is, four bits (or dancers).
https://olliepalmer.com/nybble
Rules of the Game (2018) - A short film made for the 2018 Sci Fi London 48 hour film challenge, in which participants have to write, shoot, and edit a sci-fi film in 48 hours. Each participant is given a title, a prompt and an action, and a line of dialogue, and have to use these to write, shoot, and edit a film in 48 hours.
My prompts were:
Title: Rules of the Game
Prop and action: A character opens a sealed padded envelope and pulls out a card.
Line of dialogue: The count for this stuff is off the chart, probably best you don’t get it on your skin.
My 5-minute film is about Larry Hammer in the midst of an experiment, and his relationship with Tony.
Scriptych (2016) - A couple attempt to communicate from afar using an interface which translates their movements into words.
Structured across three micro-acts, Scriptych takes precision in choreography to an extreme, embedding sensors on dancers which measure their movements and control both the music and the words spoken aloud, in real time. The couples’ communication becomes increasingly fragmented as the piece develops, posing questions about the location of meaning in messages and movements, and the impossibility of communicating true intent.
Live performance at the Opera Garnier de Paris, 18 June 2016.
3 x 3-minute choreographed sequences for 2 dancers. Live performance.
Custom computer interface with machine-learnt three-dimensional word database.
Made during my residency at the Palais de Tokyo, in collaboration with Opera Garnier de Paris, in collaboration with the incredible choreographer Simon Valastro. See https://vimeo.com/181473306 for a making-of video by INA.
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Credits
Concept, script
Ollie Palmer
Simon Valastro
Choreography
Simon Valastro
Design, technology
Ollie Palmer
Dancers
Eve Grinsztajn
Mathieu Contat
Thanks
Thanks to the Opera National de Paris / www.operadeparis.fr
Director Stéphane Lissner
Dance director Benjamin Millepied
Palais de Tokyo / palaisdetokyo.com
INA / ina.fr
