Christophe Auger, Xavier Quérel and Jérôme Noetinger have been working at the intersection of sound and image since the late 80s, and were one of the main exponents in a reinvigorated movement of film-as-performance through the 90’s and beyond.

Adamantly analogue, inspiring and frequently chaotic in performance, Metamkine draw no distinction between image and sound; during their intuitively improvised performances music and images are created simultaneously and equitably: Metamkine produces and directs a new film with each of their performances.

Christophe Auger and Xavier Quérel station themselves in front of the audience, with a bank of 16mm and 8mm projectors, from where they fire out blasts of image, bounced off mirrors onto the screen behind them. Working around a core narrative, they cause eddies of impromptu image to spill onto the screen, fragmented by prisms and filters or warped by changes in speed, all leading to an evocative dance of birth and death, where film is developed as it passes through the projectors, starting in negative, being born into positive before the chemicals ignite and the film burns in a riot of colour and form.

Reacting as if to musicians, Jérôme Noetinger, using only a mixing desk, Revox tape recorders, a clutch of amplified objects and a couple of korg synthesizers, improvises disparate electro-acoustic sounds that mirror, feed from and inspire the dreamlike, evocative images in front of him. It’s an utterly unique experience and exactly the kind of work that this festival is proud to celebrate.

They perform like a band, like a punk group. They draw no distinction between sound and image. A sound or short film clip is offered up by one of the group, and the others respond. Projectors, synthesizers, film, reel-to-reel tape are all treated as instruments, filtered through years of collective playing together, through a group mind. Simple as that.