My interest in movies as part of my art practice started in 2006 when I bought my first camera - a Sony mini-DV recorder. I would take it whenever I was visiting interesting places and try out different methods of recording and editing using the 'lite' version of Premier. As such I missed out on a formal training in film making using celluloid but went straight to digital. This fitted in well with my existing art practice as I quickly learned how to exploit the plasticity of the medium.

That being said; I still remembered my time at the Royal College of Art. With the Sculpture School being across the yard from Film-making, I was able to observe the Movement in structural film then being explored in the 1970's - people such as Peter Gidal, Malcolm Le Gris and Nina Danino. Even earlier; it brought back memories of film at Reading University which was progressing along the same lines - with my co-student Nicky Hamlyn and the exploration of combinations of 'film with installation' such as Ron Hasleden and Marc Chaimowicz. These were exciting times but I was never able to participate due to lack of money and, it must be said, lack of technical competency.

At the same time I was interested in including the 00 scale model railway environment in my installations as a commentary on computer model making. The hardware I had accumulated proved useful as an extended 'dolly' for my camera, being towed around the tracks into unusual situations. I also started to build my aerial orreries at this time and found it useful to film from on-board to complement the documentation of my pieces.

I was also conscious that I needed to pursue a parallel interest in how these movies were to be disseminated. These were the early days of internet TV and I set up my own Channel - Ottica TV - in 2008 to explore this potential. I was using the BrightCove platform (which was free at the time) and this led me to find out all the backroom stuff associated with presentation and airing on-line. Today I use the YouTube platform streamed through this website.

These movies are divided into several strands. Firstly, experiments with my digital camera, placing it in unlikely environments and recording conditions. Second, narratives composed of elements of footage from my travels. Lastly, observations from within my art projects and studio practice. These frequently merge into one other and into other aspects of my work, for instance my projects and installations.

Today (2020) I am interested in observing objects on the fringes of visibility, using the extreme zoom on my camera. Objects such as wind turbines and ships are integrated, along with the defects inherent in this process, into their ontology. As such they operate more as de-structuralist movie making. In this respect the method closely parallels my interest in Charge Field theory where base level infra-red photons are emitted from (and interact with) the physical world. Lately I have started to integrate sound structures into the audio, notably text to speech software, sequencing and sound sampling. In some of the movies I am generating narratives in the form of Gaelic mythological structures - i.e the processes of morphological transformation