Video works currently in progress:
See the Creative Ethnography Networks versions HERE
The Remote Viewers (Re-mastered): 2024
Originally made by snakebeings in 2008, this is a remastered version with clearer visuals- shot on a Sony PD150 720p MiniDV tape and now expanded and upsampled to full HD quality. Final Edit of the three part series the remote viewers-The Remote Viewers 2008 Telepaths within the electrical hermitages around Mount Te Aroha work with the local population - brain washing them through the use of street speakers which transmit alchemical to keep the population docile. The source of these broadcasts is shown to be the main stream mass media operating on officially approved frequency bandwidths. Under the guidence of remote viewing telepaths a technological witch-doctor called Nana Shamanic becomes the tool of the technicians observing this psychic effect.
Gods and Electronics: Taiwan 2023
The red faced God of War. Possession ritual at God of War temple Tainan. Other scenes: Taipei, Taichung and Tainan Feb-April 2023 Music "000 BIRDS Hybrid Modulations 78" remixed from the album (or out takes) 'Animist Lunch break' by Snakebeings on cassette and bandcamp: www.circuit47.com
Taiwan Night markets - Episode 01:
Huaxi and Shilin
A quick look around the night markets of Huaxi and Shilin including so-called Snake Alley. Featuring the Shilin bottle trick and the snake-blood restaurant Part of a longer video project in Taiwan 2023 by Snakebeings
Voice and Guide: Maxine Wang
Taiwan Night markets -Episode 02:
Bird Oracle + Fortune telling street
Raohe ST. Night market Taipei [bird oracle] + Xingtian Fortune telling street [after hours, more to follow in later episodes] Short scenes from a longer project filming in Taiwan 2023
Creative Ethnography Network.
Additional music Snakebeings Filmed + edited by SB
Voice and Guide: Maxine Wang
Cosmologies (Work in progress) (2019)
Short documentary work in progress exploring the 'cosmologies' of Hanoi streets and the animist-Buddhism rites of Lên đồng.
Camera: Emit Snake-Beings & Nhung Dinh
Editing: Emit Snake-Beings
Test edit 0001 Lo-Res: Hanoi, Vietnam.
Documenting Trần Hưng Đạo the first spirit of the cycle of 36
(Đức Thánh Trần / Tín ngưỡng Đức Thánh Trần)
in the possession rites of Lên đồng
Ganesh Chaturthi (2019)
Camera & editing: Emit Snake-Beings
70s filter: LO-RES: Suva, Fiji.
Procession and immersion of Ganpati earth statues (Murti) on full-moon 13-sept-2019.
Spy Basket Test edit 001(2019)
Short work in progress exploring the idea of a documentary filmmaker as a voyeuristic 'spy' looking-in to another world from the safety of a camera hidden inside a plastic shopping basket.
Camera & editing: Emit Snake-Beings
Location: Yangoon & Bagan, Myanmar - intro filmed in Village of no name near Hanoi, vietnam
re edit at 720p
The sacred Gymnasts: Monks.pagodas, Bodhi trees and sacred joggers (Filmed and edited 2018, remastered 2024)
An exercise in devotion. Filmed and edited by Snakebeings in Kathmandu, Nepal and Bodh Gaya India 2018 Video showing the influences of joggers on the temple environment at Buddhist temples in Nepal and northern India. Footage was gathered using unobtrusive camera phone and DSLR often shot at hip level. Filmed at Swayambhu, Bouddha: Nepal & Mahabodhi temple, Bodhgaya: India
Documentary Videos
The following videos are ones I made using a fushion of ideas from ethnographic video, creative and performative documentary: 2017-2019. Filmed and edited by Emit Snake-Beings during travels through India, Nepal, South-Asia, South-Pacific, Middle-East and Europe.
Camera & editing SnakeBeings
Filmed in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2019.
A journey through Boeng Trabaek channel which runs through south end of the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Filmed and edited by Dr Emit Snake-Beings over the two months spent crossing 'stink canal' on a daily basis, whilst staying in the city January - February 2019. At the southern most part of the city the canal becomes a catchment area for the plastic floating down with the sewage and waste water of Phnom Penh. Metal cages keep the plastic within the boundaries of the city whilst allowing the water to pass under a road and out into the countryside to the Mekong river. The people living at the southern end of Boeng Trabaek channel gather and sell the many water snails that thrive in the nearby swamps and wetlands. The repetitive sound of the snail seller's motorbike mounted loud hailer can be heard on the soundtrack of the film, mixed in with other sounds recorded in the streets during the time in Phnom Penh.
The silver boot (2019)
Camera & editing Emit Snake-Beings
Filmed in:
Tbilisi, Georgia 2019
Based on the legend of the golden fleece.
To fleece or be fleeced, that is the question.
Filmed and edited by snakebeings in Tbilisis, Poti and Batumi, Georgian. Voices recorded in cafes, trains and stairwells. Dialogue recreated from overheard conversations in Armenia and Georgia 2017.
The sacred Gymnasts: Monks.pagodas, Bodhi trees and...Joggers?
The sacred Joggers (2018): An exercise in devotion.
Filmed and edited by Snakebeings in Kathmandu, Nepal and Bodh Gaya India 2018
Video showing the influences of joggers on the temple environment at Buddhist temples in Nepal and northern India. Footage was gathered using unobtrusive camera phone and DSLR often shot at hip level. Filmed at Swayambhu, Bouddha: Nepal & Mahabodhi temple, Bodhgaya: India
Short section of the larger 'Electronic Brain' project Taiwan 2023.
Lunar new year celebrations of the rabbit, Jan/Feb 2023 a large electronic rabbit appears in a main square. Circuit building in a backstreet Taipei electronics factory. Fortune telling cupboards from Bangka Lungshan Temple, a Chinese folk religious temple in Wanhua District, Taipei, Taiwan. built in Taipei in 1738.
Soundscape- Animist Lunch Break -available from https://snakebeings.bandcamp.com/ TSMC - Taiwan Semi-conductor Manufacturing Company (Guided tour)
Taipei post office counter ticket system Camera, Editing etc- Snakebeings Part of the larger film making project Taiwan 2023
Interviewed by Karen Karnak this video explores the snakebeings archives, cutting between timezone and location to explore some of the creative strategies and ideas behind work seen on this website.
Alternatively titled "Ritual Remnants", after the exhibition in Port Chalmers 2018, the documentary follows the creative practice of Emit Snake-Beings which incorporates electronics, sound, video and sculpture. "Ritual Remnants" describes the left-over images, sounds and video material which have been created almost as a by-product of the more performance-based aspects of the creative practice. Whilst "without conscious effort" is a way of describing the way that materials collaborate in the formation of new technologies which fuse together art and science and the more mystical side of electronic alchemy. Drawing on a vast archive of material the visuals are used as trigger points to initiate or illustrate topics brought up in a series of interviews conducted by Karen Karnak during 2018.
DiY [Do-it-Yourself] Divinities Series One: Kailash in KTM (Kathmandu, Nepal)
Founded by Shree Bijay Malla in 2015, from repeated visions since early childhood, Kailash in Kathmandu is a place of pilgrimage and devotion to all Gods. Mount Kailash, in Tibet, has always held a special role as the centre of worship for many religions. Traditionally pilgrims have circled the holy mountain three times: a massive 52 km trek each circumambulation. Now that the border with China has become more difficult to cross Kailash in KTM brings lord Mahadev closer to you. Located 3.3 km north west of Swoyambhunath Stupa, next to Aadeswor Mahadev temple, Kailash in KTM allows you to see, with your own open eyes the sacred mountain. Pilgrims from around the world have already started to flock to KailashKTM, recognising the location as the holy mountain it is. Close to Ichangu, you will not need to walk more than the 93 steps up to the Aadeswor Mahadev temple, following the track behind the pilgrims graves to find KailashKTM. It is not in any guide books but there you will find an incredible sight.
APortrait of James Robinson
Creative processes documentary made for painter James Robinson. This is the original version featured at Te Manawa - Museum of art science and history - Palmerston North NZ: Six month continuous playback of ‘A portrait of James Robinson’ creative practice ethnographic documentary December 2017-June 2018. See the Creative Ethnography Network version
from Emit SnakeBeings on Vimeo.
Filmed around the diamond island investment complex of 'Elite Town': an exclusive gated community in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This J. G. Ballard-esque environment, partially deserted, partially under construction, is the starting point for the video which links guided-tour recordings from the S21 genocide museum and conversations had at the time.This video works as a companion with "Boeng Trabaek Channel". The title is a reference to Angelina Joli's movie "first they killed my father" based on the book of the same title.
gLYPHICAsOS -
Collaboration Audio + Visual jam with Leben Young, None Gallery, Dunedin. August 2018.
Edited with layers and cut-up fragments of the original 30 minute performance.
Port Chalmers ArtScience Residency: March - August 2018 (click to see full archive)
Travels in Kerala 2017/2018
Techno-Animism:
Filmed at London Hackspace an open-source maker space located in Hackney E8.
Machines made by Emit Snake-Beings during 2017 & 2016 for Hull, UK city of culture.
Hear the original sound sources in the audio archive.
Bingo-Splicer / Bingodisiac device
Prime numbers are selected randomly and displayed as dotmatrix. Sound is selected from seven internal Mp3 players. Voices, music, street recordings and collected sounds are fed into the bingo-splicer which then chops up the sounds into fragments. A nine step rhythm generator (Nine switches in a circle generating trigger beats) is fed into seven sound gates. Patterns are made from the trigger beats allowing short fragments of sounds to go through either left or right oscilloscopes and into the sound recorder.
Various layers have been overdubed and edited.
Emit Snake-Beings has been making stuff from recycled materials since 1982, when he built a spring reverb machine from a loud speaker, a couch spring and a record pickup cartridge. As well as musical instruments and sound boxes he started a collection of coin operated electrical (interactive) Shrines in 1990 after failing to destroy the final shrine in a series of destructive artworks documented in the ritual-performance super 8mm film 'The Shrine' (see the 'Ethnographic Film' link above) or check out the 8mm photography -still images made from the video transfer of 8mm films.
Music Video made by Snake-Beings for Greg Locke's The Trons
Extensive sound archives of Snake-Beings can be heard on this website, in addition to many of the visual archives which have been collected on the way, some of which are created under the pseudonym 'Edward Godsmyth', and collaborative works under the name Karen Karnak, Bingodisiac and Circuit47. In 2016 Dr. Emit Snake-Beings was awarded a doctorate for his thesis exploring DiY [Do-it-Yourself] technologies and techno-animist approaches to material agency - Publications and research can also be viewed and read here, also documented in the form of journal articles and posters for performance events (click on the link to 'Research Portfolio' above).
Ethnographic film:
Others from the portrait series:
exploring their creative practices and approaches to technology and art.
Interactive devices
DiY[do-it-yourself] experimental electronics is a large part of my work. Using Arduino I discovered that I could make quite complex sound making devices, including the Bingodizicator device (or numeralogical sound Masticator) on the interactive electronics page (see link below). I am currently working on a series of Arduino sensors to create a nine channel theremin-type unit to control a DiY analogue synthersizer i have built using a programmable Axoloti soundboard and miles and miles of wires... Various other interactive devices made by Dr Emit Snake-Beings are archived on this site, including the collection of over 30 coin-operated electrical shrines made between 1990 & 2001 and later devices using Arduino, Axoloti and Raspberry Pi technologies. There is also a collection of macromedia Flash interactive devices, such as the various cut-up and linguistic Masticators burried within the deeper realms of the archive. For a start you could try looking at the
'Interactive Diy Electronics page' or the 'Electrical shrines' page both under the 'Arte-Facts' tab above.
Death of an orchestra- Stop frame animation - Snakebeings
