Kathleen Rugh

Floods Recede to Luxury

16mm, 4 min., 2023

Ten years after Hurricane Sandy flooded the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, new luxury housing is built ever closer to the water’s edge, poised to ignore the risks of future storm surges. Using in-camera layered exposures the film examines the neighborhood in this time of transition and imagines what may still come.

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16mm, 3 min., 2021

Before all magic was lost, the sun awoke to meet me on the surface of the river.

The film captures an in-camera edit of this fleeting encounter.

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16mm, 4 min., 2020

Escape into a natural world that stretches from the mountains of Colorado to the ocean’s edge in Oregon. Journey through fleeting moments when these distant landscapes become one through layered exposures on film.

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16mm, 5 min., 2019

The landscape is changing rapidly in Colorado. Denver’s dense growth has contributed to trapped heat in the urban core. Meanwhile, the state’s mountain regions are suffering from more frequent and devastating wildfires. In 2018, the 416 Fire burned more than 54,000 acres in the San Juan Mountains near Durango. These two changing landscapes are juxtaposed together through in-camera multiple exposures on film.

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16mm, 3 min., 2018

Following the winter solstice, the longest nights of the year prevail. Through these darkest nights the moon reaches to its fullest. Filmed over numerous nights the moons of different phases are brought together in the black sky. Through multiple exposures on film and editing created in-camera, the moons move and bounce off one another in unpredictable ways. Official NASA sound recordings from space help activate their actions. The stoic moon breaks free and gravitates at will.

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16mm, 3 min., 2018

As summer comes to an end, the moon reaches towards becoming full. Over three nights the moon is captured on film through in-camera editing and multiple exposures. The moons of different nights come together in the frame, to interact and play with one another, while official NASA sound recordings from space bring us closer.

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16mm Film, 9 1/2 min., 2016

On the edges of New York City and the outskirts of Los Angeles expansive oceans reach the land. People flock to experience a piece of nature grander than their cities. The film explores that boundary and at moments brings these two disparate coasts together as one.  Through in-camera edits and double exposures slices of the film layer together these distant locales. 

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Film made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts’ Electronic Media and Film Finishing Funds grant program, administered by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes (NYSCA.org, eARTS.org).

16mm film, Color and B&W, Sound, 7 min., 2012

Imagery and sound create an encompassing environment where tunnels of light and the continual flow of water act as a connecting force between differing locales ranging from the Oregon coast to the depths of a park in Brooklyn. Stepping into one place and then out into another relates to the atmosphere and experiences of a dream.

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Film made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts’ Electronic Media and Film Finishing Funds grant program, administered by the ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes (NYSCA.org, eARTS.org).

16mm film, Color, Sound, 8 min., 2011

Woven within brick, metal, traffic, and people there exists an oasis of the natural layered both indoors and out.

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16mm, Color, Sound, 5 min, 2009 

“…[O]bjects have a certain presence. The world is full of vision, full of eyes…” James Elkins

With feelings of isolation there is a fascination with observing the objects and sounds outside these old windows.

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16mm, B&W toned, Sound, 9 min., 2010

Sunlight is abstracted and accentuated through alchemy. Through a pinhole lens, this hand-processed and toned film chases sunlight through water and glass and streaming through branches and clouds.

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16mm, Color, Sound, 6 min, 2008

Creating an environment centered around the flux of summer weather in the contrasting landscape of the northeastern and the southwestern United States this film uses moving storms as a representation of the cyclical nature of our lives.

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Video, 9 min. & 7 min., 2010

In these videos sunlight has been abstracted and activated as it seeps through the windows and skylights of a dark room. Black-and-white surveillance cameras and analog processing systems transform the light in unpredictable ways. As an installation the projected light integrates into the architectural features of its new space.

Made possible by an artist's residency at the Experimental Television Center.

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16mm Film Installation, 5 min., 2008

This 16mm film installation was comprised of a 5-minute film projected as a continuous loop through a sculptural loop wall. The 8' x 8' wall housed rollers that guided the 200 feet of film as it traveled across the wall to the 16mm projector. 

The film's image, which was comprised primarily of imagery depicting the ebb and flow of summer rainstorms, was projected into a sectioned off part of the gallery space. The audio track of the film, including the sounds of pouring rain, thunder, wind, passing traffic, and more joined with the sounds of the loop wall's projector, torque motor, and squeaking rollers. All of this combined with the visuals of the projected image and the passing film to create an encompassing atmosphere for viewing and experiencing the film on its multiple levels.

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16mm, B&W, Sound, 7 min, 2007

Isabell presents views of a domestic space juxtaposed with audio from an elderly man’s discarded answering machine tape. The tape was discovered in an abandoned automobile factory in Detroit and contains dialogue and messages centered around the loss of a dear friend, Isabell. 

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