DON'T BLINK
Link to 'Don't Blink' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUShvZQWk_c&feature=youtu.be
This personal, intimate, and autobiographical video has evolved out of a series of projects concerned with subjects that are common to all of us: loss, grief, nostalgia and the passage of time. I have combined still photographs from family albums spanning a period of more than 50 years with some more recently taken images to make this video piece.
Our past memories are triggered in any kind of random chronological order, and this piece explores how our thought processes operate, sometimes speeding quickly and sometimes dwelling more slowly. It also raises the question about why why we feel the need to document our lives in such detail, when in reality the actual photographs might not be looked at very often. However, there is something comforting in the knowledge that they exist, which is why we find it hard to throw away such photographs. We are also reminded that the dead are gone, that we are getting older, that times change, and that, at some point, we too will only exist in the images and memories that we leave behind.
This piece tries to convey the ephemeral sense of life flying by in the blink of an eye, which is mirrored by the idea of the camera shutter capturing a moment in the fraction of a second that can never be caught again. People who are no longer with us live on in a fragile layer of chemistry, and those who are with us will continue to be documented for posterity.
This video was shown at Centre Space Gallery in Bristol in April 2012
Link to 'Don't Blink' here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUShvZQWk_c&feature=youtu.be
This personal, intimate, and autobiographical video has evolved out of a series of projects concerned with subjects that are common to all of us: loss, grief, nostalgia and the passage of time. I have combined still photographs from family albums spanning a period of more than 50 years with some more recently taken images to make this video piece.
Our past memories are triggered in any kind of random chronological order, and this piece explores how our thought processes operate, sometimes speeding quickly and sometimes dwelling more slowly. It also raises the question about why why we feel the need to document our lives in such detail, when in reality the actual photographs might not be looked at very often. However, there is something comforting in the knowledge that they exist, which is why we find it hard to throw away such photographs. We are also reminded that the dead are gone, that we are getting older, that times change, and that, at some point, we too will only exist in the images and memories that we leave behind.
This piece tries to convey the ephemeral sense of life flying by in the blink of an eye, which is mirrored by the idea of the camera shutter capturing a moment in the fraction of a second that can never be caught again. People who are no longer with us live on in a fragile layer of chemistry, and those who are with us will continue to be documented for posterity.
This video was shown at Centre Space Gallery in Bristol in April 2012
