Daniel Cockburn

The Abjuration

Metropolis meets Necropolis, Gotham gets drawn and erased, and Glasgow plays host to a spectacle that nobody will ever see.

Ahead of the Curve

Einstein proposed that time might not flow linearly, suggesting that spacetime bends and warps under powerful matter, seen as gravity's fluctuations. During the pandemic, people experienced this concept firsthand: shrinking horizons made time seem to both stand still and race forward. Daniel Cockburn’s video Ahead of the Curve reflects this surreal period when norms vanished, and internet rabbit holes drew people in—either as black holes for doomscrolling or wormholes to discovery. Through a darkly comic narrative, Cockburn spins a tale full of unexpected twists, linking past and present with disorienting shifts in tone, setting, and tempo, offering hints of what might lie ahead.

Correspondence 1989-1999

Over the course of a ten-year postal correspondence, a pair of movie-going pen-pals share their thoughts on some of 90s cinema’s key traits: the rise of video, the need for speed, and of course the cliff-edge sense of global dread. But do decades have ‘key traits’ at the time? Or do we assign them these characteristics retroactively, trying to make sense of things in hindsight? Only Leonard Nimoy knows for sure.

Pattern Recognition

To celebrate the BFI's Thriller season, filmmaker Daniel Cockburn explores the power of sound to terrify and unsettle. Using sounds from Hollywood's best-known thriller and horror films, Cockburn makes familiar noises frightening and leaves us wondering... What's that sound? And why won't it stop?

Repeat Viewing (After Hours)

Daniel Cockburn discusses that may or may not have seen the film After Hours before

All the Mistakes I've Made, Part 2 (or: How Not To Watch A Movie)

Daniel Cockburn’s exuberantly cerebral, filmically deconstructionist work defies easy categorization, and this program of new work is no exception, from a short that interrogates “things that mean other things before becoming a thing that means other things in itself,” and a performance piece that juxtaposes two postmodern 1994 horror films, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare to explore both the redemptive and destructive powers of storytelling.

The Impostor (hello goodbye)

One of several works commissioned for The Colin Campbell Sessions and inspired by the makings of video art pioneer Colin Campbell for the Tranz Tech festival. Cockburn's video draws formally on Campbell's style while at the same time metaphorically expressing the artist's anxiety in making the video itself.

Metronome

Metronome is a 2002 Canadian short experimental film which mixes appropriated film clips and video by video artist Daniel Cockburn to express ideas about rhythm and order, the self and other minds, and the digital age. Densely philosophical, the work is acknowledged as his international "breakout hit" after several locally successful short works, winning praise from critics, a mention, and an award.

Doctor Virtuous

Doctor Virtuous can't sleep or stay awake and he's worried about radiation