On Fire, 2022

On Fire is a short film by Oscar Cannon and Alan McFetridge which explores the natural elements of an urban environment. It positions the city as a biome, with interwoven ecosystems of life running through it. With a combination of landscape photography and digital editing, the film presents a familiar setting through an uncanny lens, resulting in a dreamlike journey through a world that any city-dweller will recognise.

Authors Process Notes

In February 2022 I traveled to Istanbul to meet an artist also interested harmony. Each day we met and walked around the different areas of the city. By evening we had gathered food and prepared home-cooked meals and ate together in the evening. Before midnight we walked to the nearest public transport and said farewell until the next day.

I’m sure this generosity helped me to feel at ease in a hectic city of 20 million and so began to make moving and static sketches using the camera of my phone and recording ambient sounds to encompass waves of movement beyond the camera’s view.

When I began to make the sketches, I came across a painting titled Fire by chance. The date of the painting is unknown, we do know it is by Migirdic Civanyan (1848 -1906). With the paintings appearance, I attempted to imagine the place at that time perhaps 125 years earlier by moving to the potential areas where the fire could have been noticed and originated - while moving through a 21st Century City/Biome.

A.M.

The process of making this video was new for me as I’d never collaborated on a work in this way before. When Alan first showed me his footage I was intrigued as I was seeing fragments of an experience through someone else’s eyes. There were many things I recognised but other things I found unusual, simply because I lacked the wider context and firsthand experience. At first I struggled to find meaning in the footage, but as I continued to work with it, I found the story telling itself.

O.C.