Still shots from ‘In search of the unreal n.01’
Fold, bend, cut
Draw a line
Overlay, conceal, reveal, interrupt, disrupt
The shifting, uncertain image
This is the litany to run through my mind whilst I make the series of new collages inspired by my recent film. I’d like to find six or so collages that work which should be sufficient to refine the techniques and resolve issues. One will be fully finished using the correct materials, scale and mounting methods ready to show at Maidstone Museum in May with Making Art Work.
I want to think a bit more about how what I’m making relates to the exhibition’s theme of ‘time’. The piece involves photography and film which both inherently capture the trace of an event, trapping (freezing) it in time, although precisely what is caught is open to interpretation. The technique of collaging physically compresses the thoughts, concepts and temporal factors embedded in the original source material into a single pictorial instant.
In my new filmic collage the one piece of footage exciting me most shows shots of London through a passing train; flickering images, inside then out, a strobing billboard, flashes of colour, light and shade. It creates its own inherent montage, but the question it creates is can a still piece of collage capture anything of this shifting, dynamic nature?
Here’s a series of small test pieces exploring this issue.
I’ve done as many as I can think of this week & posted the more interesting ones above. Just need to select a ‘winner’ now to develop further!
In terms of my new film, the single piece of the footage that excites me most is about shots of London glimpsed through a passing train. It creates flickering images – inside then out – a strobing billboard and flashes of colour, light and shade. As a whole, the footage manages to create its own inherent collage without any manipulation from me.
Can a still piece of work still capture something of this shifting nature?
My project feels in a strong place. I have a plan of how the work can be developed further – things to test, new sites to try and new methods of transport to look at. I have a rough budget and a timetable. I know what support I need to strengthen the project. Relevant information, images and a short extract from the film have been updated onto my website. Even if the first application is unsuccessful, I feel poised, ready, with what I need to apply elsewhere.
More about my work: my website – twitter feed
My other blog: inspiration
How does the new film I’ve just finished connect to my other work of collaged women’s faces?
Both are about fracture and disruption – shaking things up to allow space for a hint of the ‘Other’ to seep through – constructing new possibilities of my own making.
Both shift lines of power and control away from where it stereotypically would reside. The nature of the resistance is subtle but present, manifesting as a refusal by the image to remain intact and thus available for possession.
Somewhere during the course of making the film my relationship to the subject matter drifts. It began as a liminal experience connected to a regular use of the train for work and study. Reading Marc Augé introduced thoughts of places of transport as barren, inhuman non-spaces the opposite of Utopia. However, the more I filmed and the more I engaged with the project itself, the greater connection I felt to the journey and the space in which it took place. Passivity was usurped by active engagement with sites as they sped past and with the train as a creative place of making, wrestling control back towards the self.
I wonder if the feelings of connection and control will dissipate now filming this particular journey has ended?
More about my work: my website – twitter feed
My other blog: inspiration
