
Person
David Gatten
Directing · Born 1971-02-11 · Ann Arbor, Michigan
Biography
David Edward Gatten (Born February 11, 1971, Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American experimental filmmaker and moving image artist. Since 1996 Gatten's films have explored the intersection of the printed word and moving image, cataloguing the variety of ways in which texts function in cinema as both language and image, often blurring the boundary between these categories. His 16mm films often employ cameraless techniques, combined with close-up cinematography and optical printing processes. In addition to the ongoing 16mm films, Gatten is now making hybrid 16mm/digital works and has completed an entirely digital feature-length project called The Extravagant Shadows. Among other projects, they are currently working on a series of films entitled Secret History of the Dividing Line, a True Account in Nine Parts, a project which Artforum magazine called "one of the most erudite and ambitious undertakings in recent cinema." He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005 to continue work on this series of films exploring the library of William Byrd II of Westover (1674–1744) and the lives of William Byrd and their daughter Evelyn Byrd (1707–1737). [Wikipedia]
Known for
Today! (excerpts)
Director

Intermission
Narrator

Silver Align
Director

The Illinois Parables
Himself
Today!
Director

This Day’s Madness did prepare Tomorrow’s Silence
Director

Odysseus and the Oceanic Feeling
Narrator

The Extravagant Shadows
Director

The Spirit Lamp
Director

Hardwood Process
Director
Filmography
- 2025The Spirit LampDirector
- 2021This Day’s Madness did prepare Tomorrow’s SilenceDirector
- 2019The Heart is the Residence of the SpiritDirector
- 2018Narrow Rivers, Open Seas & Seventeen Sunsets (Silences for A Merchant Mariner)Director
- 2017Odysseus and the Oceanic FeelingNarrator
- 2016IntermissionNarrator
- 2016The Illinois ParablesHimself
- 2016China monumentis (A Roll for Peter)Director
- 2016Devotions Upon Emergent OccasionsDirector
- 2015Crossing Brooklyn FerryDirector
- 2013What Places of Heaven, What Planets Directed, How Long the Effects? or, The General Accidents of the WorldDirector
- 2013By Pain and Rhyme and Arabesques of ForagingDirector
- 2012The Extravagant ShadowsDirector
- 2011The Matter Propounded, of Its Possibility and Impossibility, Treated in Four PartsDirector
- 2010So Sure of Nowhere Buying Times to ComeDirector
- 2010Film for Invisible Ink, case no. 323. Once Upon a Time in the WestDirector
- 2009Ordinary Time, Equivocal InventoryDirector
- 2009Journals and RemarksDirector
- 2008Today! (excerpts)Director
- 2008Today! (excerpts #28 and #19)Director
- 2008Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 142: ABBREVIATION FOR DEAD WINTER [Diminished by 1,794]Director
- 2007How to Conduct a Love AffairDirector
- 2007Today!Director
- 2007What The Water Said, Nos. 4-6Director
- 2006Shrimp Boat LogDirector
- 2006Film for Invisible Ink case no. 71: BASE-PLUS-FOGDirector
- 2004The Great Art of KnowingDirector
- 2003Fragrant Portals, Bright Particulars and the Edge of SpaceDirector
- 2002Secret History of the Dividing LineDirector
- 2001The Enjoyment of Reading, Lost and FoundDirector
- 1999Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of PrintingDirector
- 1998What The Water Said, Nos. 1-3Director
- 1996Hardwood ProcessDirector
- 1995Silver AlignDirector
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