Spring Break
Experimental artist reaches students through film
Rose Bittner
Issue date: 1/17/06 Section: Culture
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"I used to watch old movies and westerns with my dad," Horsmon remembers.
Horsmon is in her second semester teaching film and media at UMKC.
"UMKC's film and media emphasis in the Department of Communication Studies is a great program," said Horsmon, who accepted a teaching position with UMKC primarily because of the strength of the program and her colleagues. "Faculty members are dynamic, interesting and fun."
"I became seriously interested in making experimental film six years ago while in graduate school at the University of Iowa," Horsman said. There Caitlin earned her M.A. in cinema and comparative literature and an M.F.A. in film and video production.
"What primarily distinguishes experimental film from commercial film is the basis for which the film is made," Horsmon said. "Experimental film has a different relationship to its audience because it isn't created to make money. Accordingly, an experimental film is everything that a regular film is not."
Experimental films, she continued, do not fit into neat, little explanations. Horsmon finds importance in the subtle and understated.
"I get interested by listening, looking and reading," she said. "My work captures the texture of everyday life."
Horsmon became fascinated in teaching while working at the Chicago International film festival.
"I taught high school students, the elderly, the deaf and hard of hearing about film," said Horsmon. "That's when I knew I wanted to teach at the university level."
Working with deaf students made her realize there is a "physical relationship" to sound.
"Sound is actually moving through the air and penetrating viewers," said Horsmon, who constantly demonstrates her keen perception for overlooked insights.
Overall, Horsmon has made an estimated 20 films.
"Each of my films and videos presents itself to me as a momentary thought magnified and reconstructed in an audio-visual form, persistent questions worked out through images and sounds," said Horsmon. "My films and videos exaggerate the vagaries of the everyday-a grasshopper and a crow, a conversation in a bar, an accidentally filmed walk through a fairground-until they grow into something more."
Horsmon commented on her current work, "Themes and Variations for the Naked Eye." She said the film "reexamines everyday limits and breaks in a series of surfaces-bodies of water and animals-making its subject the interior bits, most often removed for our comfort."
In the future Horsmon plans to continue making films and videos, teach and perhaps write a book.
"My large project as I make more films and videos is to continue to think through the connections between media, form, and concept, and to make movies that stray from established vocabularies with enough precision to evoke the questions at hand," said Horsmon.
She is also in the process of making some of her films available for UMKC students through Miller-Nichols Library. She plans to have them on DVD in the library soon.
rbittner@unews.com
