James Benning (B. 1942) is an American filmmaker known for his experimental observational/documentary film. Exploring both nature and the built environment, utilising durational static shots. James Benning is known for his use of structuralist techniques in his films. Structuralism as a film movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and explores the formal elements of cinema, such as shot composition, editing, and sound, and the ways in which these elements can be used to create meaning. Benning works with long static shots, presented in real time, asking the viewer to inhabit the world of the film, through quiet and still contemplation.
Benning is a significant influence of my work as a musician, championing similar durational ideas of inhabitation of intangible media, while also exploring stillness and quiet as compositional devices. This work pays tribute to the film I have most deeply connected with ’Ten Skies’, rescoring the film from Benning with an earthy minimalist soundtrack.
The piece was performed as layered improvisations, on Flue pipes, contact miced slate and a chordophone of the artist design. These improvisations were then processed and underscored with the addition of test equipment derived oscillating sine waves.