Christopher Steel

About

Christopher Steel (1968) has exhibited still and moving image work in galleries and festivals internationally for almost 30 years. His work is held in the collections of LUX (London), Light Cone (Paris) and Caixa Forum (Barcelona). He lives in Surrey.

Contact

christophersteelwww [at] gmail.com

Work

Made by Christopher Steel, additional credits as listed

Films:

Studies, 2024, short clips from my DYCP project
My Grandad Killed Your Grandad, Doodah, Doodah, 2015, 16mm, b&w, sound, single screen, 4' 50
Welcome Back to Southside, 2017, video, silent, single screen, 45min loop
Season's Greetings, 2019, animation, 1'30
Lucca Round, 2014, 16mm, color, sound, single screen, 5' 00
NOlympics, 2012, 16mm, b&w, sound, single screen, 2' 19
S.E.O.S., 2008, 16mm, color, sound, single screen, 2' 28
Pants, 2009, 30x30cm, c-type print
They Came to SW19, 2017, 16mm, color, sound, single screen, 6' 30
Hej hej hej hej…, 2009, DV, colour, silent, 2' 45 loop
First Contact, 2008, 16mm, color, sound, single screen, 2' 00
Welcome to Southside, 2004, 16mm, color, silent, single screen, 3' 03
Tube, 2004, 16mm, b&w, sound, single screen, 8' 00
Beltane, 1997, 16mm, b&w, sound, single screen, 6' 00
Shh, 1996, 16mm, b&w, sound, single screen, 0' 50

Photography:

Slower, 2022, 20x25cm, c-type print
Jacket 1, 2008, 40x50cm, c-type print

Awards

2023: Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice award for project "Learning to Code"

2017: Alchemy Film & Arts Exhibitions Programme commission for "Welcome Back to Southside"

2017: Atelier 105 post production residency at Light Cone, Paris

2008: Distinction, Gstaad International Short Film Festival for Artists’ Films

2005: British Council travel grant to Tehran

2005: Winner, Best London Film award, Halloween Short Film Festival

2005: Nominated, Tiger Cub Competition Rotterdam Film Festival

2005: Nominated, Leo Award for Best Soundtrack, Braunschweig Film Festival

1998: Production grant, Wandsworth Film Fund/LFVDA

1998: Nominated, Tiger Cub Competition Rotterdam Film Festival

1994: Production grant, London Film Makers’ Coop

1994: Production grant, Wandsworth Youth Development

Texts

Dr Chirstinn Whyte, Selective Histories, in The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies, ed. Douglas Rossenberg 2016, p72

"Deren noted that "the camera can create dance, movement and action which transcends geography and takes place anywhere and everywhere;” and in Christopher Steel's Welcome to Southside from 2008, the camera's journey also forms the basis of the work. Multiple re-exposures of a single roll of film, shot from a moving vehicle's interior, reconstitute a fragmentary, abstracted cityscape of night-lit neon, with viewing perspective located as though from within the immersive silence of a luminously technicolored snow globe interior."