Nuno Cera
The intersection between art and horror is a well worn, Centuries old path. Our passion hereabouts is largely the film side of the marriage. As horror film fans we seem to bemoan as much as we praise; and with good reason. It is difficult to craft a 90 minute work of art that communicates the language of horror in all the varied ways that we have learned to speak it.
In Narrative form it is just too easy to take a turn that betrays the sensibilities of a lot of people in the audience. For this reason, I have always been drawn to non-narrative, or non-traditional narratives. Photographs, paintings, sculpture and various other forms of expression can impart so much with out needing to be 'understood'. Film can too, but our pedigree (especially as American audiences) seems to have us convinced that we have to solve the puzzle in definitive terms.
Nuno Cera is a multi-media artist who works out of Portugal and Berlin. That he has been highly influenced by horror films is obvious. What isn't obvious is the way in which he crafts his images.
Cera's short films and photography seem to echo or reflect the emptiest places within and outside of the human experience. His work "The Lost Soul" is a short film that follows a ghostly woman wandering the hallways of an abandoned factory. We aren't being set up for a big pay-off or necessarily coaxed into a world where a story is to unfold. Instead we may just ponder the howling loneliness and alienation of the images.
His other works inhabit similar physical and emotional spaces. Dilapidated structures, factories and empty modern apartment blocks are all spaces we recognize both in construction and remoteness.
You can check out excerpts of short films and photography here:
http://www.nunocera.com/
It may not be for everyone, but Cera's work is thought-provoking and haunting at the same time. It also suffers from none of the structural constraints that fuel a lot of our frustrations within the horror film genre.
