Joe Magee: Gearhead

Joe Magee is a Bristol-based artist, filmmaker and graphic designer. He often uses low-tech processes combined with the computer – layering images, combining manipulated stills and short video sequences, using multiplication and repetition, sound and vivid colour. Joe Magee’s work has been commissioned by galleries, Channel 4, for publication in newspapers, magazines and on the Web. His short films have been shown at festivals worldwide. Gearhead was commissioned by Picture This and Knowle West Media Centre and supported by the Lottery through the Film Council’s First Light initiative, Knowle West Detached Youth Project and Aardmans.

Gearhead portrays a dysfunctional teenager living in a loop on a bleak English housing estate. Driven by a daily mission, his behaviour stops at nothing until it is achieved. Reduced to a mere automaton, his mannerisms become more deranged and absurd as the day continues. There's only ever one thing on his mind. Using heavily manipulated video and graphic colourisation, Joe Magee's film conveys the surreal experience of a young dropout. The protagonist's state of mind manifests through extreme film loops and continually recurring sound motifs. Dogs become agitated, birds circle and clocks stop working all to the backdrop of a melancholy ice-cream van. And all the while children play in the never-far-away playground.

Exhibition:
Gearhead has been shown at Brief Encounters Short Film Festival, Bristol; British Film Festival, Israel; Commonwealth Film Festival, Manchester; Edinburgh Film Festival; Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland; Leeds International Film Festival, LUX Open; Naples Film Festival, Italy; Sgrin, Cardiff; Tampere Film Festival, Finland; Showcomotion, Sheffield.