Marc Neys (aka Swoon)     (from Belgium / Europe)
SMELL

Swoon’s work is provocative, beautiful and disturbing. Using poems as guidelines, Swoon (Marc Neys) creates video and soundscapes using a blend of layered images taken from internet archives, advertisements, and his own film and sound recordings. Swoon’s work is instantly recognizable for its dreamlike quality as well as the skill with which the artist extracts new meaning from the poems he illuminates.

Image, sound, voice and poetry combine seamlessly to create something fresh, exciting and often startling in Swoon’s work. His experiments with single poems are impressive, but he continues to push the genre of video poetry with sequences, triptychs, and his first long film, Cirkel (Circle). Cirkel features the poetry of several Belgian poets, woven together to create a poignant story of love, loss and regret. This piece proves that longer works of video poetry can be as successful as short ones.

These videos are demanding, and, like poetry, require the viewer’s full attention. “I’d like my work to be inviting,” Swoon says. “I want my videos to raise questions, demanding that you watch them again.” Fortunately, much of his work is available to the public via the internet, for those who want to experience the videos multiple times.

Swoon’s work has been featured at film festivals all over the world. Since October 2013 Swoon is also video-editor for the online magazine Awkword Paper Cut.



swoon-videopoetry.com/