Erin Audley
My name is Erin Audley. I am a magician. I make films and films are magic.
Descartes’ first principle, je pense, donc je suis – I think, therefore I am – asserts that the very act of doubting one’s existence serves as proof of the reality of said existence. But I have always had questions. You see, I am a philosophical skeptic, a radical doubter. How can one truly assert their own existence? How do I know that what I perceive exists outside of my ability to perceive it? And if I am unable to confirm what I am perceiving is extant, then how can I be relied upon to interpret my perception? If I smile, does that mean I am happy? If I cry, am I sad? How does one tell?
So, I struggle with reality. I cannot claim to know if anything that I experience is real or if I even exist. This is what my films attempt to assert. My own existence. I made a thing, it exists, therefore I must also exist. At least, I hope I exist.
In this quest for existential affirmation, my camera becomes an extension of my consciousness, a tool to capture and manipulate the ephemeral nature of perceived reality. Each frame is a question, each edit a proposition in an ongoing dialogue with the viewer about the nature of existence and perception.
My films are best described as experimental. Like most filmmakers, my work focuses on form, light, color, and sound to express emotion and idea. However, my aim is to push beyond conventional boundaries, to dismantle the familiar and reconstruct it in ways that challenge our understanding of what is real and what is illusory.
The visual language I speak originates in the early movements of absolute film and cinéma pur. Films that eschew character and narrative, relying on movement, light, rhythm and composition to convey their messages. Stripping away superfluous, reducing cinema to its most fundamental elements. I merge these concepts and aesthetics with the modern era, manipulating data and physical mediums to create glitches and artifacts, beautiful defects in reality. This is the language I use to create a direct conduit between my consciousness and that of the viewer, bypassing the filters of narrative convention and logical interpretation.
The abstraction in my work is not merely aesthetic; it’s a reflection of the abstract nature of existence itself. Through manipulating light and shadow, through rhythmic editing and carefully chosen soundscapes, I seek to recreate reality. My films are not meant to be passively watched, but actively experienced, each viewer’s interpretation becoming an integral part of the work itself.
In essence, my films are both a quest for self-affirmation and an invitation to the viewer to question their own perceptions. They are experiments in existence, attempts to capture the intangible, to make visible the invisible threads of consciousness that bind us to our reality – or what we perceive as reality.
Through my work, I don’t seek to provide answers, but to provoke questions. If, in watching my films, you find yourself doubting, questioning, wondering – then perhaps, for a moment, you and I exist together in a space of uncertainty. And in that shared space, shared experience, we might find a different kind of certainty – the certainty of connection, of shared perception, of mutual existence.
This is the magic of film – its ability to create realities, to question realities, to connect realities. And in this magic, I find my purpose and, perhaps, my proof of existence.
Patrick Audley
Transhumanist scholar and artist based in Vancouver, BC. Extensively travelled and very broadly educated; currently studying the inspection of AI and humanity as our creation starts to grow but also to shape us. Active projects include ventures in cryptographically entwined AI-generated artwork as well as fusing real-time sensor data with AI-generated text.