Peter Miller

Directing

Peter Miller

Place of birth

Burlington, Vermont, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

17 titles

Peter Miller is an artist specializing in film and photography based in Essen, Germany and Paris, France. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and apprenticed to be a silversmith. His film and photographic works are preoccupied with magic and generally investigate the phenomena of the cinema and its constituent, irreducible elements: lens, light, flicker, audience, projection, etc. His works are in numerous private collections as well as public collections such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; SFMOMA, San Francisco, USA; the Innogy Stiftung, Essen, Germany; and FRAC Midi-Pyrénées, France. His films have been screened at festivals including the Berlinale, …

Known for

Projector Obscura poster
5.0

The similarity between motion picture cameras and projectors is such that if a projection booth is adequately darkened and unexposed film is run through a projector, light illuminating the theater will enter the projector lens and expose the film. 35mm film projectors used this way will record the objects and space before them, exposing the relationship between two fixed elements in the cinema: the projector and the screen. In "Projector Obscura", the lens, which is normally responsible for casting out so many images, is given a chance to take in light and reflect upon its theatrical space, and the screen is given a chance to stand bare.The theaters recorded in this project are the Biograph, the Gene Siskel Film Center, Anthology Film Archives, Gateway, MFA-Boston, Coolidge Corner and Harvard Film Archive.

Projector Obscura

2005

Gossamer Walls poster
NR

Through the process of contact printing, hand processing, and low-fi optical printing, Gossamer Walls remembers, mis-remembers, and reinterprets a previous generation’s super 8 home movies.

Gossamer Walls

2007

No artwork available
NR

Two 35mm reels of film contain a portrait of a film projectionist projecting and rewinding and projecting and rewinding the same two reels of film. The screen becomes a mirror, revealing the “man behind the curtain”. The lights remain up and the audience is encouraged to amble about the theatrical space, dividing their attention between the live and identically recorded performance. This performance must run for at least twenty minutes and may run for as long as the projectionist wishes.

Forever Film

2006

Stained Glass poster
NR

Dear Projectionist, after these opening credits, please remove the lens from the projector for the duration of the film. Thank you in advance. (Peter Miller)

Stained Glass

2014

Photuris poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Photuris

2013

Firefly poster
NR

A boy and a girl expose a quantity of film to a constellation of fireflies, making a cameraless portrait of bioluminescence. This is what the world might look like to a firefly, from birth to death. This film was not made with a lens. It is a self-portrait of fireflies.

Firefly

2006

Behind the camera

Projector Obscura poster
5.0

The similarity between motion picture cameras and projectors is such that if a projection booth is adequately darkened and unexposed film is run through a projector, light illuminating the theater will enter the projector lens and expose the film. 35mm film projectors used this way will record the objects and space before them, exposing the relationship between two fixed elements in the cinema: the projector and the screen. In "Projector Obscura", the lens, which is normally responsible for casting out so many images, is given a chance to take in light and reflect upon its theatrical space, and the screen is given a chance to stand bare.The theaters recorded in this project are the Biograph, the Gene Siskel Film Center, Anthology Film Archives, Gateway, MFA-Boston, Coolidge Corner and Harvard Film Archive.

Projector Obscura

2005

Gossamer Walls poster
NR

Through the process of contact printing, hand processing, and low-fi optical printing, Gossamer Walls remembers, mis-remembers, and reinterprets a previous generation’s super 8 home movies.

Gossamer Walls

2007

Gossamer Walls poster
NR

Through the process of contact printing, hand processing, and low-fi optical printing, Gossamer Walls remembers, mis-remembers, and reinterprets a previous generation’s super 8 home movies.

Gossamer Walls

2007

No artwork available
NR

Two 35mm reels of film contain a portrait of a film projectionist projecting and rewinding and projecting and rewinding the same two reels of film. The screen becomes a mirror, revealing the “man behind the curtain”. The lights remain up and the audience is encouraged to amble about the theatrical space, dividing their attention between the live and identically recorded performance. This performance must run for at least twenty minutes and may run for as long as the projectionist wishes.

Forever Film

2006

Stained Glass poster
NR

Dear Projectionist, after these opening credits, please remove the lens from the projector for the duration of the film. Thank you in advance. (Peter Miller)

Stained Glass

2014

Photuris poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Photuris

2013

Firefly poster
NR

A boy and a girl expose a quantity of film to a constellation of fireflies, making a cameraless portrait of bioluminescence. This is what the world might look like to a firefly, from birth to death. This film was not made with a lens. It is a self-portrait of fireflies.

Firefly

2006

Eidola poster
NR

'Eidola' references an early intromission theory of vision, that all things emit tiny versions of themselves into our eyes. That theory competed at the time with the emission theory, that the eyes themselves emitted light, which emerged from the eyes and sent back to the mind what was seen. In this piece we see through eyes that emit an infrared light to which the raw film is insensitive while touching the camera's retina with an external light which it can 'see'. We move from the un-lensed eye along the film path (optical nerve) into the magazine containing the film in the process of its exposure (the mind). As we do so there is a growing lapse between the performed light and the moment we see it in the video because we are traveling further from the 'eye' (memory).

Eidola

2014

Polaroid Feedback poster
NR

Unlike traditional video, or double-mirror feedback, this Polaroid doesn't reference the infinite extendibility of a single moment, but rather it reverse engineers the collapsibility of many moments into one.

Polaroid Feedback

2009

Ritournelle poster
NR

"How do you find what you don't know you're looking for ?"

Ritournelle

2012

Very Similar to poster
NR

Mirror exercises in the woods.

Very Similar to

2009

No artwork available
NR

For this found footage animated film I downloaded 10,000 photographs of the sunset, adjusted each one and arranged them in order, setting into motion a singular, colossal, collective sunset.

Set

2017

A film that adds three minutes to your life poster
NR

It does! This film is from Panacea, a cycle of "useful films".

A film that adds three minutes to your life

2010

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Very Similar To

2009

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

A film that cleans your eyes

2010

Photowalk (unterirdischer Film 1/4) poster
NR

Peter: …So Eva, I have this camera here. It’s an old point-and-shoot 35 mm camera… and I was thinking maybe we could play a camera game together… / Eva: So, what’s the game about?

Photowalk (unterirdischer Film 1/4)

2020

Ruptures in the Reel poster
NR

A self-aware composition for the cinema. A direct address in defense of a special spatial. An essay film, in the sense of "essayer".

Ruptures in the Reel

2022