DIS2601 artist statement Project 2

My video for project two explores childhood memory and ritual, the scenes and senses which are familiar to us through repetition and déjà vu. I returned to the area where I was raised and filmed familiar places such as my first house and its surrounding bush land, the walk to school from the train station, shelves of books I was raised on and scenes such as my grandparents sitting on their veranda or my mother’s hands slicing a mango. I chose scenes like these because I wanted the resulting video montage to be both personal to my own memories and universally nostalgic, so the viewer could also take a trip down memory lane. The presentation of this video montage, as a projection onto my own body, makes a comment on the way in which early life experiences can shape us as people. I am intrigued by the question of nature versus nurture and this project examines the latter, conveying the idea that we become the stories that we tell and the memories that we hold. Inspired by Chris Marker’s Le Jetee and Everynone’s video montages, I have used an aesthetic style which reflects the fragmented and broken nature of memory, and the feeling that comes when you can’t quite place a feeling of nostalgia or yearning. The abstraction of the original footage once they were projected onto my body is reminiscent of this sensation.

Edited Footage for Projection

This is a cut from the finished footage I plan to project onto my body - it would have taken ages to upload the whole half hour of video, but you get the idea re: editing, style etc. excuse the terrible web quality!

Memory and Familiarity

These are a selection of stills from the footage I've taken of things that are familiar to me from either my childhood or from mundane repetition/ritual. The footage will be edited fairly simply in final cut pro to overlap and mix together (i will set opacity at about 50%) to create a sort of dreamlike montage of disjointed memories and sensations.

Doug Aitken

Sleepwalkers, 2007

Sam Taylor-Wood

Sleep
 


'The Last Century, 2005

Pop Culture Overload

Some examples of youtube footage (click see more, below) I might like to rip into a very quick montage, as a sort of bombardment of pop culture/media influence. I could either project this onto a wall behind the performer, or onto the performer's body. I'm inclined toward the former because I'd like to identify the differences gap between these influences and the real world/person. I'm thinking of shooting my own footage of things directly familiar to me, like a close up of my bedsheets or the hands of my mother, and projecting these onto the performer's (my) body.
The pop culture montage could easily be a separate project to this, I'm not sure how much would be too much for a single video performance piece. But I intend to confuse and overload the audience with footage to some extent, as this is what I believe the media does.

Chunky Move

Assembly 2011

Went to see the world premiere of Gideon Obarzanek's final work with Chunky Move. I'll let him do the talking! (it was brilliant, hypnotising)

La Jetée

Watching this famous film in photographic theory, brings up some fascinating theories about photography and cinematography, and the problems in freezing reality, the assumed truth of a photograph, the death of time etc. beautiful imagery and a rich storyline as well.

Everynone

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.
 beautiful, simple art videos by Everynone - I especially appreciate the combo of music and real recorded sounds - the clips selected are genius, too!

Breakdown

Final video piece for digital audio/video project

An exploration of social pressures and expectation, freedom and self realisation.

Special thanks to Kate Haysom and my other helpers/support!

audio track by Frou Frou

Wrapping up Kate

In the filming studio for my first ever short film - which involved way more mess than had been anticipated but which was also a lot of fun! Pictured is Kate Haysom, my lovely, mess-friendly performer, who's tolerance was outstanding as we wrapped her up in layer upon layer of glue, glitter, paint, paper, fluorescent netting, gutter guard, cellophane and the like.

Shaun Gladwell

Just went to see Shaun Gladwell's exhibition at ACMI - loved it to pieces, the common thread which tied all the works together was really simple and consistent - basically a recurring theme of reflection and duality, parallels and pairs etc. Though his works are standalone brilliant, the show also made me aware of how important presentation is in video art: in presenting his dual videos in pairs, one on each wall facing each other, the viewer had to choose which to look at, and couldn't view them both side by side, which was interesting in inviting audience participation on some level, though also keeping control.

Chunky Move 'Connected'

 

Another video documentation of a performance/installation, but with stand-alone artistic power. Would have loved to have seen Chunky Move's latest show 'Connected' but missed it - luckily I think this video and many others do the brilliant performance justice! I'm interested in working with film, the body and sculpture in a multi-media/video piece for DIS2601. Perhaps using elastic and extreme close ups on skin.

Miranda July

Me and You and Everyone We Know

I still haven't managed to get my hands on the entire film but the clips available on youtube are wonderful, this intro sequence especially sets a great mood and I love the way Miranda July tells a simple story of ordinary people with such basic film techniques, and manages to make it seem so special.

Her Morning Elegance

Pipilotti Rist

Interior Space at MoMA designed by the wonderful Miss Rist: Architectural space turned organic animal body. I'm sure photos do it no justice but the idea is beautiful.

"The deliciously named Swiss miss Pipilotti Rist, who for two decades has been ravishing viewers with her fiesta-colored video visions, has risen to new heights of trippy bliss. Her opulently beautiful 25-by-200-foot wraparound video at MoMA—complete with two round breast-shaped projector pods protruding from the walls and close-ups of pink tulips, a black pig, and a fleshy nude—is catnip for the eye and a hormonal rush for an institution badly in need of one. It is one of the most seductively rebellious artistic gestures since Lynda Benglis’s notorious Artforum ad in 1974, for which she posed naked wielding a dildo. Benglis’s action slapped a biased art world awake; Rist’s Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters) suspends us in a primordial sea of liquids, and performs a metaphysical sex change on the Museum of Modern Art. The atrium of this bastion of masculinism becomes a womb, and the museum itself a woman. In an abstract way, Rist makes the institution ovulate."

 

Another installation by Rist - similar relationship between building and body. I love this!