Back in 2012, I wrote about ‘Magnetic Reconnection’, a beautiful, haunting experimental film about the aurora borealis, scored by Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Wilco) and narrated by Will Oldham (Matewan, Old Joy).
Now it’s available as a DRM-free download from Vimeo for $3.
“Until recently aurora footage was captured on 35mm film at an ISO value of 800 with up to 30 second exposure times,” said Armstrong. “The resulting images often appeared to have very little definition or semblance of what the phenomenon appears to the naked eye and had the appearance of blobs of plasma with small changes. Over the past 10 years advances in digital sensing technology has led to more accurate representations, what you’ll see if you look on YouTube, with 15 second exposures, even 10 second exposure times. While they make for compelling and pretty pictures, these clips are frequently set against with moonlit nights with loads of light pollution suffering from the plasmic blob look because of the long exposure times.
Magnetic Reconnection [Kyle Armstrong/Vimeo]
