A Rural Idyll
In the Forest Garden
Inner Landscapes
Absent Presence
Trace
Photomontage
Performative Drawing
Act of Listening
About
@hortus_silvam
1994
Performance; double projection; writing
At this time the artist was inspired by the work and titles of works by Pierre Bonnard. The pointilist painting technique was found in the heavy grain of the film. In the transfer to Betacam SP, light danced on the wall as the video was slowed to 10%. The nudes became almost static, shimmering like paintings, trapped in their frames.
Super-8mm film transferred to Betacam SP slowed to 10%
Gallery | Site specific exhibition in a dark space: continuous silent loop
Performers: Fiona Menmuir, Tom Noone
Far apart
two nude bodies are naked
together
side by side with a distance between,
strangers brought together in vulnerability
trying to get out,
cornered by two walls and the floor,
going nowhere,
ignorant of the other.
Far apart, two nude bodies are naked, together, side by side with a distance between, strangers brought together in vulnerability trying to get out, cornered by two walls and the floor, going nowhere, ignorant of the other.
In this experimental moving image work, the artist directed two actors to perform seemingly trapped in a corner framed by the camera lens. They do not know each other, nor do they ever meet each other, yet projected side by side on human scale they each shared the other’s predicament; in the same physical situation but suffering their own psychological spaces. The grain of the Super-8mm film, filme in low light indoors, is further degraded by multiple transfers ultimately to Betacam and projected life size at approx. 10% speed, reducing movement to the barely perceptible. In a darkened space the quality of the film through video projection seemed reminiscent of a pointillist painting technique bought to life. The figures move and shimmer on the wall like a Bonnard painting with all the curious undercurrent and intense gaze. Experimental poetic prose accompanying many of the works from this time intertwined across the pages of a book, using different languages, in dialogue with each other.
Location: Oxford
A performance work from the series Trace, made in the 1990s, documented on film and further explored through the transfer to analogue and digital media.
scar, trauma, memory, nakedness, vulnerability, frame
© Sophie Standford