One month in…. Two to go
Over the past month, the work I am currently developing at Lumen on my residency has significantly progressed away from my initial project proposal. Whilst still focusing on notions relating to photography and film, the absence of the real and the temporal nature of actuality, the work in progress focuses solely on the individual moment, rather than its immediate environment as initially planned. Stills, a piece that I created earlier this year whilst in Berlin, acts as a point of departure for this new thread of enquiry. Moving away from site specificity, Stills is an exploration in to the relationship between Photography and Film.
Reminiscent of life and present on digital film, the inanimate taxidermy specimens imitate a series of photographs; petrified as if captured in one singular moment through the lifelike pose and appearance long after death. These portraits re-present a duration of time; their deceptive gaze seemingly watching time pass as the reflection of their spectators moves across the glass surface of their eyes.
Exploring the relationship between photography, film, and temporality, Stills presents the reality of the medium in which it is created. The moving image significantly conveys the temporal aspects of actuality, in relation to its existence as a subject affected and controlled by the forces of time. Here time is still present, but the most important characteristic of life, movement, has been extracted.
‘Stills’ 2009
The work I am creating at Lumen as part of my residency extracts the visual all together. Concentrating on audio recordings, I am developing an installation that removes the physical subject entirely. Working with a group of Ballet Dancers, the sound and vibrations created with their ballet shoes is recorded; archiving the contact noise between the points and the floor whilst they dance a ballet sequence in unison.
This sound will then be played back to an audience in a gallery, emerging from an empty constructed stage. Faced with the absence of the dancer, but left with an impression of a past moment, the viewer is provided with what seems like a moment of closeness in proximity to the dancer, whilst removing the physical body all together.
