This artwork is a video that uses clips from fantasy science fiction movies to juxtapose movements of the body that relate to ideas of balance and unbalance. In this work, there are two stacked but separated video images made of an edited compilation of 3 movies – Fantastic Voyage (1966), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1977), and Logan’s Run (1977).
The characters in these chosen movies are on their own self-discovering journeys, portrayed in the original films through the filter of science-fiction fantasy, where ideas of time and place are open to the imagination. Here, I have taken these journeys of self-discovery and edited them down to fragments that highlight the importance of physical experience on this journey.
The edited clips have been chosen for one of two reasons. There are moments in which the characters have lost their balance, are falling, or are jumping, as well as moments in which the characters are moving/turning their head. This movement, in either case, relates to the ability of the body to balance through self-location- the understanding of the body’s placement in relationship to its surroundings. During a loss of balance in a fall or jump, the body temporarily loses its location, but when we move our head back and forth, or up and down, we use that same part of the brain the finds our balance in order to keep our physical bearings.
Through the stacking of these two separate movements, the juxtaposition of body languages creates a fragmented dialogue between the different films and bodies on screen. While the bodies above are falling, floating, or swinging, the lower subjects are focused on looking, finding, and searching. The fast pace of the cuts denies cohesive narrative, but the juxtaposition of these clips allows for physical relationships between the screens and characters to make reference to one another, and create spatial relationships that place the videos in and out of ever-changing contexts.
Science Fiction is a genre that uses an alternate reality through imagined time and space relationships, and here I am interested in providing an opportunity for these imagined relationships and experiences to express the displacing experience of being unbalanced.
The audio for Lost and Found comes from the instrumental or dialogue-free sound effect audio from the 3 movies. These tracks are then laid into the video based on the speed or movement in the corresponding video clips. Taking the audio from the movies helps to capture the kooky and often over-dramatic tones of this genre, and allows the non-narrative of the video clips to have an equally disjointed auditory trajectory.
For a continuation of this project, I would be interested in further investigation of the relationships between the screens. By tightening the editing, adjusting the order of the clips, and a more deliberate control over the looping, I think that there would be more contextual and relational incitement and therefore a more consistent effectiveness of the conveyed message.
In terms of installation, I would most like to see this project with each of the screens on its own 40” flat-screen wall-mounted digital television, in the stacked arrangement. I think that the physical separation of the images through the separate TVs and their reference back to their home-entertainment source would be a playful and powerful way for a viewer to experience this work. The brightness of the televisions would also cast that familiar light onto the faces of the viewer, adding to the experience of those watching the viewers.
However, as I write this, I could also imagine these images as full-wall projections, so that the image fills the room and envelops the viewer in a way that makes them a participant in this balance-challenging video experience.
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This artwork is a video installation that uses a single projector, turning on a motorized platform to cast a constantly moving image in 360 degrees. This image shows the rhythmic movement of an anonymous roller skater, propelling the body forward through the constant shifting of weight.
On the floor in the center of the room is a 24-inch square base that houses the motor, and supports DVD player and projector on a knee-high rotating platform. The image projected on the wall shows only the legs and feet of the skater, moving in the same direction as the image itself.
The projection is a constantly moving image, circling around the perimeter of the room at a slow and steady pace. The relationship created between the moving feet and the moving image almost creates the illusion that the momentum of the skater is moving the projection. However, there are multiple aspects of this work that prevent the illusion, and instead create a playful disconnection between image, the viewer and the space. For example, the slow speed of the circling image in comparison to the speed of the skater, and the distortion of the projected image as it goes in and out of the corners of the rectangular room point to important differences between the installation site and the proposed physical space of a roller rink.
The exposed DVD-player, digital projector and turning platform show the source of the constructed experience. These important elements of the installation add to the quirky nature of the work by the constantly referring back to its box-like site and simple technology.
However, the work is not concerned with creating an illusion, but with investigating the balanced movement. The camera is focused on the skater’s constant shifting of weight, back and forth, from one foot to the other, propelling the body across the floor and through the crowds. The image is slightly tunneled, with the skater’s image centralized on the screen and the outer edges of the screen feathered to black. This tunneled view refers to the focused look of a voyeur, and directs the viewers’ eyes to the specific location of the subject’s shifting weight.
Correspondingly, the movement of the projector creates a shifting of weight in the room. Just as the skater must move to the open spaces in the skating pathway in order to move through the crowd, as the projector circles the viewers they too are encouraged to move their bodies and become participants in the installation. Because the image moves along the periphery, viewers either become a part of the work by allowing the image to project their shadow onto the body of the skater, or they choose to move around the room, moving into the open spaces at a pace equal to the skater, staying opposite the projection in order to continue their voyeuristic and anonymous observation.
The audio for this work adds to the whimsical nature of the piece by combining appropriated sounds of street traffic and percussive jazz rhythms. The sounds of urban movement, like revving cars, honking horns, motorcycles and air brakes, create the sense that the noise is being generated by the traffic of the skaters on the wall. This absurd analogy is then compounded by the boisterous and inviting sounds of urban music, with percussive jazz/hip hop beats layered over the sounds of moving traffic. This collage of sampled sounds combined with the exposed technologies of the literally moving image all acknowledge the viewer as a media savvy participant, ready to make connections, and physically engage in an ever-shifting space.
