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=Project proposal outline=  
=Project proposal=  


== Introduction ==
== Introduction ==
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* 1) I will film with a videocamera nightshots and observe how the low light zones in the image can be perceived. The presentation takes form of a multiscreen installation in a darkened room, where each screen is big enough to allow the impression of being surrounded by the videographic images. The reduced visibility in the dark scenes demands a look of concentration by the audience. The seeking gaze encounters the core of the image itself and finds through the temporal moving noise in the underexposure the revealed object lying behind. One by one filmed in a fixed frame, there are urban constructions followed by views of the harbour up to a vast scene of the dark sea.
* I will record night-shots using a digital camera to explore how low-light zones in an image can be rendered and received. The presentation will take the form of a multi-screen installation using projections within a darkened room. Each screen will be big enough to give the viewer the impression of being surrounded by the images. The reduced visibility in the night-shots necessitates the concentrated gaze of the viewer. The seeking gaze encounters through the temporal moving noise in the images underexposure the revealed object lying behind. One by one, filmed using a fixed frame, urban constructions followed by views of the harbour will lead up to a vast scene of the dark sea. Given that the subject matter of the work is the act of seeing itself, and thereby the constructed image, the scenes presented show archetypes that the viewer can use as an anchor point before the image dissolves back into the dark.
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* In juxtaposition to these outside views will be projections of portraits. For this second part of the graduation project, I will create a sequence of photographic portraits recorded using an additional counter zoom. Here a digital stills camera moves backwards while zooming in and vice versa. Afterwards a looped sequence presents one image after the other with an interpolation between each one to ensure the illusion of continuous movement. I use this effect with a black background to focus only on the alteration of the faces. This modification of perspective creates an illusive movement, barely recognizable. Both the outside views and the accompanying portraits stand at the threshold between presence and absence. They present a constant becoming and fading at the limits of perception.
* 2) In addition to these scenes there will be projections of filmed portraits. For this second part I of the graduation project I create a sequence of photographic portraits of women recorded with an additional counter zoom. Concretely the photo camera moves backwards while zooming in or the other way around. Afterwards the looped time sequence presents one image after the other with an interpolation between each one to ensure the illusion of a continuous movement. I use this effect with a black background to focus only on the alteration on the faces. The modification of the perspective provokes an illusive movement, barely recognizable. The two works can either be seen separately from each other or mixed together, at this stage of the proposal I would like to keep it as an open question.
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The research I started in [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Trimester2#Self_Directed_Research<font color="black">the second trimester</font>] is what I want to deepen for the graduation project. In that trimester my field of interest lay in a comparison of photography and video, from stillness towards the moving image, shifting from analog to digital. The construction of the image itself was looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expresses some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity. In this final year I will investigate technical aspects of the digital moving image during the shooting, the postproduction and the installation of the final projection. Besides that I will reflect about the form of the video installation, the role of the observer and read some theory of cinema.</td>
<td valign="top">[[File:Test26.09.13.jpg| frame | right| Testshooting, 2013]]</td>
<td valign="top">[[File:Test26.09.13.jpg| frame | right| Testshooting, 2013]]</td>
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==Oscillating Shadows==
==Tentative title: ''Oscillating Shadows'' ==
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In the final presentation the spectator finds itself in a delimited space surrounded by large projection screens. The perception lies in the center of my investigation and is challenged by an initially slight disorientation, comparable to a situation at night in a forest where the eye has to adapt to the low light. Then filmed night shots appear on the screens, one with a view of large buildings, another one with a scene of the harbour and one with a view of the seaside. Though instead of having the blinding lights of the city and the industry in the center, the dominant part will be the dark zones in the picture. Because of the slight underexposure of the video there will be temporal moving noise, flickering of pixels, which provokes a vibration in the shadows. The aim is a composition of different low light areas, a result of more or less abstract images with an urban, industrial and natural background. The scale of each screen monumentalize the picture and evokes the idea of standing in front of a full size landscape painting.<br>  
* The research I began in [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Trimester2#Self_Directed_Research<font color="black">the second trimester</font>] is what I want to deepen for the graduation project. In that trimester my field of interest lay in a comparison of photography and video, from stillness towards the moving image, shifting from analog to digital. The construction of the image itself was looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expressed some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity. In this final year I will investigate technical aspects of the digital moving image during the shooting, the postproduction and the final presentation. I will also reflect on the form of the video installation, the role of the observer and read some theory of cinema.<br>
Next to these landscapes there will be vertical projections of filmed portraits evoking the theme of the gaze, another line of research that I have started in [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Trimester2#Self_Directed_Research<font color="black">the second trimester</font>] mentioned above. I was influenced by the topic of the gaze in theory of the cinema, ideas of the psychoanalysis and the uncanny. Furthermore my interest in perception leads subsequently to the role of the observer. His implication while looking at an artwork become important, especially when considering Henri Bergson's idea that the image is an artificial product of mind. The filmed portraits will all be recorded with an additional counter zoom (vertigo effect). The thereby induced changing of perspective provokes a subtle movement. The look back to the audience and the slight deformation of the faces leave the spectator with an uncertainty about who is the one that is shifting. The current proposal title ''Oscillating Shadows'' suits to the video nightshots of landscapes as well as to the filmed portraits, while referring both times to the threshold of stillness and barely recognizable movement.  
* In the final presentation the spectator will find herself in a delimited space surrounded by large, hung projection screens. Perception lies at the center of my investigation and this will be challenged by an initially slight disorientation due to the darkness of the room, where the eye has to adapt to the low light condition. The night shots will be projected onto the screens, but instead of being a blinding light the dominant part will be the dark zones of the image. Because of the slight underexposure of the video there will be temporal moving noise created by the flickering of pixels, which provokes a vibration in the shadows. The aim is a composition of different low light areas, resulting in more or less abstract images. <br>  
-------
* Next to these outside scenes there will be vertical projections of portraits, evoking the theme of the gaze back to the beholder, another line of research that I have started in [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Trimester2#Self_Directed_Research<font color="black">the second trimester</font>] mentioned above. I was influenced by the topic of the gaze through my research into cinema theory, psychoanalysis and the uncanny. Furthermore, my interest in perception leads to the role of the observer. Her implication while looking at an artwork become important, especially when considering Henri Bergson's idea that the image is an artificial product of mind. The filmed portraits will all be recorded with an additional counter zoom, creating a vertigo effect. The induced changing of perspective provokes a subtle movement. The portraits gaze back at the audience, and the slight deformation of the faces leave the spectator with an uncertainty about who is the one that is shifting. The current tentative title ''Oscillating Shadows'' speaks to the night-shots as well as to the portraits, while referring to the threshold of stillness and barely recognizable movement explored in both pieces.
Depending on the available space and the possible technical dispositiv, the films are shown either at the same time on different screens or in a sequence on only one. I would like to install translucent screen(s) hanged in the middle of the room, in order to varie between transparent window to the exhibition space and opaque surface with view on the filmed exterior scene. The semitransparency resumes the treshold that is inherent to the videographic nightshots themselves, where the underexposure can be seen as barrier between medium and revealed object. Hence the observer finds itself at a transitory passage, by his glance simultaneously here and there, he shifts between outside and inner world.<br>I would like to work towards a viewer's impact that is situated between fascination and repulsion. On one hand the blackness and vibration in the dark zones should attract like a light. On the other hand the observer might have an anticipation linked to the idea of disappearance and loss. The feeling of an undefined menace could come up, like in Kafka's univers an obscure fear of getting lost. My attention is to evoke with the installation an affect that is situated between an nervous anxious feeling and pure contemplation.</td>
* The created environment of the multi-screen installation challenges the viewer's perception. The viewer finds herself in a transitory moment; her glance simultaneously seeking orientation through the revealed image, she shifts between a perceived outside and her own inner world. I would like to create a psychological space that is situated between fascination and repulsion. On the one hand, the blackness and vibrations in the dark zones attract like a light, on the other hand, the observer might have an anticipation linked to the idea of disappearance and loss. The feeling of an undefined menace could come up, like in Kafka's universe with its obscure fear of getting lost. My attention is to evoke through the installation an experience situated between a nervous, anxious feeling and pure contemplation.
<td valign="top">[[File:Talbot1843.jpg | 200px| right| frame |Henri Fox Talbot, Rouen, 1843]]</td>
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<td valign="top">[[File:noisetest.gif | 200px| right| frame |Testshooting, 2013]]</td>
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== Relation to previous practice ==
== Relation to previous practice ==
Several interests and points of research have built a background that serves as constant reference and flows into the concrete creation of a new work. It can be seen as a complex structure, where each part influences mutually the others. For example the current research on the construction of the image and the look at the behaviour of the medium can be found in previous photographic works and was then once more animated by curiosity in the digital moving image, what seemed for me to be the counterpart of the stillness in analogue photography. Furthermore the project with the gaze treats with its subtle movement the idea of presence and absence what constitutes the whole construction of the time-based image and links to my previous work [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Reading,_Writing_%26_Research_Methodologies_2012-TM1.01 <font color="black"> Schwarzes Licht, 2010</font>]. The theme of the night always allowed me to talk about the process, the latent image and to reveal the unseen. To sum up the initial period of research, the theme of disappearance in photography led together with the theme of the „nocturne“ from the romanticism to the subject of the limit of perception.<br><br>
* [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Graduate_Research_Seminar_2013-TM4.02<font color="black">Relation to previous practice</font>]
-------
* [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Reading,_Writing_%26_Research_Methodologies_2013-TM3.02 <font color="black">Self directed research essay</font>]
 
For a better understanding of how I got to this point, it is useful to look back at the origin of my investigations with photography and its time-based image.
<u>A short retrospective view in note form</u><br><br>
Several interests and points of research have built a background that serves as constant reference that flows into the concrete creation of a new work. For example, my current research on the construction of the image and the behaviour of the medium can be found in previous photographic works, which was once again activated by a curiosity in the digital moving image, which seemed to me to be the counterpart of the stillness in analogue photography. Furthermore, my exploration of the gaze in the portrait works treats, with its subtle movement, the idea of presence and absence that constitutes the whole construction of the time-based image and links to my previous work [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Reading,_Writing_%26_Research_Methodologies_2012-TM1.01 <font color="black"> ''Black Light'', 2010</font>].
* ''Aster'', 2008: topic of the night in the center/ allows to talk about the process, reveal the unseen, latent image/ limit of perception, the invisible is the main referent/ theme of absence/ introspection, exp. portrait/ psychoanalysis/ exteriors becoming screens for inner images/ contemplation/ romanticism/ juxtaposition of pictural and photographic/ duration and instant
The theme of the night always allowed me to talk about the process, the latent image and to reveal the unseen. To sum up, my initial period of research into the theme of disappearance in photography together with the theme of the „nocturne“ from the romantics, links to my current interest in the subject of the limits of perception.<br>
<table border="0" padding="2">
The crucial unique instant while triggering the photograph turned into duration while using long exposures, which I used a lot in my previous works. Now, through thinking about the construction of the digital moving image time again plays an important role and presents the idea that the image as such is never present as a whole (''Videophilosophie'', Maurizio Lazzarato). This intriguing insight links to the role of the observer, her perception and the question of where the actual image is created, and what it means if it never exists all at once? These reflections increased my curiosity in the origin of the image, which can be understood as the foundation that drives me in my current research. I am heading towards the construction and dissolution of the image, which moves between materiality and pure signal, between duration and instant; searching for the missing link and the space and time in between, at the threshold of abstraction.<br><br>
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<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerAster.jpg| frame | Nicole Hametner, ''Aster'', 2008]]</td>
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* ''Le Sapin'', 2010: media specificity, woodcut-photography/ duration of production of a wooden matrice and long time exposures on a sheet film/ blackness, deep black of the matrices/ again the night as central element/ at the border of the visibility/ oscillate between negativ and positiv, day and night/ black and white images closer to our nightvision/ the process of photography, to freeze and solidify in silver/ between the pictural and the photographic/ materiality of the polaroid portrait, the photographic emulsion/ theme of the forest linked with the sublime/ portal to an imaginary world
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<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerLeSapin.jpg| frame | Nicole Hametner, ''Le Sapin'', 2010]]</td>
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* ''Schwarzes Licht'', 2010: light installation/ role of the audience/ oscillation of present and absent image, latent image/ greek mythology/ Freud's three casket theory
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<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerSchwarzesLicht01.jpg| frame | right | Nicole Hametner, ''Schwarzes Licht'', 2010]]</td>
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* ''Montchoisi'', 2011: from forest to the element of water/ its different states/ from frozen towards the constant flow (now in the digital video image)
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<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerMontchoisi02.jpg| frame | Nicole Hametner, ''Montchoisi'', 2011]]</td>
<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerMontchoisi01.jpg| frame | Nicole Hametner, ''Montchoisi'', 2011]]</td>
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* First Trimester at Piet Zwart: tried to link with previous investigations/ theme of perception/ techniques of the observer, 19th to 21st century/ [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/thaumatrope01.html <font color="black">pulsing thaumathrope</font>], theme of the after image/ dematerialisation/ from stillness to moving image/ intrigued by the temporal moving noise in the underexposure digital image
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<td valign="top">[[File:Thaumatrope.jpg| frame | right | Thaumatrope, 2012]]</td>
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The crucial unique instant while triggering the photograph turned into duration while using long time exposure, what I used a lot in my previous works. Now through thinking about the construction of the electronic moving image the factor of time again plays an important role and emerges the idea that the image as such is never present as a whole. This intriguing insight links to the role of the observer, its perception and the question where the actual image is created and what does it mean if it never exists all at once? These reflections increased my curiosity for the origin of the image, which can be understood as foundation that drives me in my current research.<br><br>


== Relation to larger context==
== Relation to larger context==
I am approaching with a background in photography the electronic moving image towards the aspired aim to present the work in a videoinstallation.
Using a background in photography, I am exploring the electronic moving image towards the presentation of work in a video installation.<br>
-------
* [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Graduate_Research_Seminar_2013-TM4.03<font color="black">Relation to larger context</font>]<br><br>
<br>
Raphael Hefti/ Chris Cornish/ Valerie Mréjen/ Roni Horn/ James Turell/ Olafur Eliasson/ Bill Viola/ Gary Hill/ Harun Farocki/ Michael Snow/ Marie Jo Lafontaine/ Mark Lewis/ Fiona Tan/ David Claerbout/ Douglas Gordon/ Bruce Naumann/ Tacita Dean/ Runa Islam/ video art/ experimental and silent film/<br><br>
 
<u>Steve McQueen, ''Running Thunder'', 2007</u>
* installation with hanged screen in space
* reflections of the presentational mode
* photograph of a dead tree enclosing a stone<br>
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[[File:SteveMcQueenRunningThunder01.jpg| frame |Steve McQueen, ''Running Thunder'', 2007]]<br> 
[[File:SteveMcQueenRunningThunder02.jpg| frame |Steve McQueen, ''Running Thunder'', 2007]]<br>
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<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerThere.jpg | frame | Nicole Hametner, ''There'', 2012]]</td>
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<u>Gillian Carnegie, ''Black Square'', 2008</u>
* the contradiction between matter and image
* black painting of trunks with textured paint
* about the viewers position, his movement to reveal the image
* challenge of depicting a night scene
* do I have to simulate my vision at night?
* made me think of my previous work in the forest
* Carnegie also mixes genres, still life, landscapes, portrait > portraits next to landscapes<br>
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[[File:GillianCarnegieBlackSquare.jpg| frame |Gillian Carnegie, ''Black Square'', 2008]]<br> 
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<td valign="top">[[File:NHametnerWald.jpg| frame |Nicole Hametner, ''Wald'', 2006]]</td>
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<u>Mark Rothko/ Hiroshi Sugimoto</u>
* precise idea of the work's installation
* necessity of a sensitive observer
* sense of the unknown
* transcendence of the individual
* towards spiritual experience<br>
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[[File:RothkoChapelHouston.jpg| frame | Mark Rothko, ''Rothko Chapel'', 1971]]<br> 
</td>
<td valign="top">[[File:SugimotoPineTrees.jpg| frame |Hiroshi Sugimoto, ''Pine Trees/ Coffin of Light'', 2001]]</td>
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<u>Black paintings</u>
* abstract expressionism
* the sublime
<br>
<u>Pointillism of Georges Seurat</u>
* grid of dots
* structure of the paper
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[[File:GeorgesSeurat.jpg| frame | Georges Seurat, ''The Artist's Mother'', 1882]]<br
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== Small projects ==
== Workplan ==
[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Graduate_Research_Seminar_2013-TM4.02<font color="black">Small projects to reflect about the graduation project</font>]<br><br>
The visual research is devided in two parts:
* Recording of the footage (image and sound)
* Tests and observations of the display in a dark room
Until now I have done some [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/User:Nicole_Hametner/Graduate_Research_Seminar_2013-TM4.04<font color="black">small experiments</font>] which help me to reflect about the graduation project.<br>
For the next series of test shots, I will record an image sequence using long exposures to create still images, which will then be played back at 24 frames per second. My subjects will be a water surface, static buildings and the human figure. It is an experiment between duration and the instant, between distinct temporal operations and what lies hidden in long exposures through overlaying, condensing, and synthesis. During these test shots I will also investigate the stillness of the model in the portraits, the act of concentration, his or her focus on the recording camera and vice versa.  <br><br>


== Thesis proposal ==
== Thesis proposal ==
The shift from stillness to the moving image is based on my interest of the treshold to something that is in constant movement and thereby articulates the theme of presence/ absence and disappearance. In addition to that the juxtaposition of the analog photographic image and the digital moving image consequently evokes the question of indexicality and its materiality. My essay [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/emo/BlackBox<font color="black"> Black Box</font>] written in the second trimester approaches what is being transformed or "lost" in the analog digital conversion. For the thesis I would like to tie in with this point and ask the question about the construction of the image itself. Is the image dissolved during the process of conversion? And when it is argued that the digital moving image is under constant construction and never there as a whole, what does that mean for the origin of the perceived image in our own vision?<br><br>
The shift from stillness to the moving image is based on my interest in the threshold as something that is in constant movement, and thereby articulates the theme of presence/absence and disappearance. In addition to this, the juxtaposition of the analog photographic image and the digital moving image evokes the question of indexicality and its materiality. My essay [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/emo/BlackBox<font color="black">''Black Box''</font>] written in the second trimester explores what is being transformed or "lost" in the analog digital conversion. For the thesis I would like to key into this point and question the construction of the image itself. Is the image dissolved during the process of conversion? And when it is argued that the digital moving image is under constant construction, in constant flow, and therefore never there as a whole, where lies its origin and what or who is then responsible for the finally perceived image?<br><br>


== Bibliography ==
== Bibliography ==
* Maurizio Lazzarato, ''Videophilosophy''
* Maurizio Lazzarato, ''Videophilosophy''
* Laura Mark, ''How Electrons Remember''
* Henri Bergson, ''Matter and Memory''
* Henri Bergson, ''Matter and Memory''
* Jean François Lyotard, ''Les Immatériaux''
* Laura U. Marks, ''How Electrons Remember''
* Gilles Deleuze, ''The Movement Image'' and ''The Time Image''
* Mary Ann Doane, ''The Emergence of Cinematic Time''
* Jonathan Crary, ''Techniques of the Observer'' and ''Suspensions of Perception''
* Barbara and Joseph Anderson, ''The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited''
* Kaja Silverman, ''The Threshold of the Visible World''
* ''Between Stillness and Motion'', Edited by Eivind Rossaak
* Laura Mulvey, ''Death 24 Times a Second''
* Paul Virilio, ''L'Art à Pert de Vue''
* Tanizaki Junichiro, ''Praise of Shadows''
* Tanizaki Junichiro, ''Praise of Shadows''
* Paul Virilio, ''L'art à pert de vue''
* TJ Clark, ''The Sight of Death''
* Laura Mulvey, ''Death 24 times a second''
* Daniel Arasse, ''Anachroniques''
* Jonathan Crary, ''Techniques of the Observer'' and ''Suspensions of perception''
* TJ Clark, ''The Sight of death''
* E.T.A Hoffmann, ''Interpretations''
* Persistence of vision and adaption of the eye
<br><br>
<br><br>

Latest revision as of 01:35, 2 December 2013

Project proposal

Introduction

  • I will record night-shots using a digital camera to explore how low-light zones in an image can be rendered and received. The presentation will take the form of a multi-screen installation using projections within a darkened room. Each screen will be big enough to give the viewer the impression of being surrounded by the images. The reduced visibility in the night-shots necessitates the concentrated gaze of the viewer. The seeking gaze encounters through the temporal moving noise in the images underexposure the revealed object lying behind. One by one, filmed using a fixed frame, urban constructions followed by views of the harbour will lead up to a vast scene of the dark sea. Given that the subject matter of the work is the act of seeing itself, and thereby the constructed image, the scenes presented show archetypes that the viewer can use as an anchor point before the image dissolves back into the dark.
  • In juxtaposition to these outside views will be projections of portraits. For this second part of the graduation project, I will create a sequence of photographic portraits recorded using an additional counter zoom. Here a digital stills camera moves backwards while zooming in and vice versa. Afterwards a looped sequence presents one image after the other with an interpolation between each one to ensure the illusion of continuous movement. I use this effect with a black background to focus only on the alteration of the faces. This modification of perspective creates an illusive movement, barely recognizable. Both the outside views and the accompanying portraits stand at the threshold between presence and absence. They present a constant becoming and fading at the limits of perception.
Testshooting, 2013

Tentative title: Oscillating Shadows

  • The research I began in the second trimester is what I want to deepen for the graduation project. In that trimester my field of interest lay in a comparison of photography and video, from stillness towards the moving image, shifting from analog to digital. The construction of the image itself was looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expressed some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity. In this final year I will investigate technical aspects of the digital moving image during the shooting, the postproduction and the final presentation. I will also reflect on the form of the video installation, the role of the observer and read some theory of cinema.
  • In the final presentation the spectator will find herself in a delimited space surrounded by large, hung projection screens. Perception lies at the center of my investigation and this will be challenged by an initially slight disorientation due to the darkness of the room, where the eye has to adapt to the low light condition. The night shots will be projected onto the screens, but instead of being a blinding light the dominant part will be the dark zones of the image. Because of the slight underexposure of the video there will be temporal moving noise created by the flickering of pixels, which provokes a vibration in the shadows. The aim is a composition of different low light areas, resulting in more or less abstract images.
  • Next to these outside scenes there will be vertical projections of portraits, evoking the theme of the gaze back to the beholder, another line of research that I have started in the second trimester mentioned above. I was influenced by the topic of the gaze through my research into cinema theory, psychoanalysis and the uncanny. Furthermore, my interest in perception leads to the role of the observer. Her implication while looking at an artwork become important, especially when considering Henri Bergson's idea that the image is an artificial product of mind. The filmed portraits will all be recorded with an additional counter zoom, creating a vertigo effect. The induced changing of perspective provokes a subtle movement. The portraits gaze back at the audience, and the slight deformation of the faces leave the spectator with an uncertainty about who is the one that is shifting. The current tentative title Oscillating Shadows speaks to the night-shots as well as to the portraits, while referring to the threshold of stillness and barely recognizable movement explored in both pieces.
  • The created environment of the multi-screen installation challenges the viewer's perception. The viewer finds herself in a transitory moment; her glance simultaneously seeking orientation through the revealed image, she shifts between a perceived outside and her own inner world. I would like to create a psychological space that is situated between fascination and repulsion. On the one hand, the blackness and vibrations in the dark zones attract like a light, on the other hand, the observer might have an anticipation linked to the idea of disappearance and loss. The feeling of an undefined menace could come up, like in Kafka's universe with its obscure fear of getting lost. My attention is to evoke through the installation an experience situated between a nervous, anxious feeling and pure contemplation.
Testshooting, 2013

Relation to previous practice

For a better understanding of how I got to this point, it is useful to look back at the origin of my investigations with photography and its time-based image. Several interests and points of research have built a background that serves as constant reference that flows into the concrete creation of a new work. For example, my current research on the construction of the image and the behaviour of the medium can be found in previous photographic works, which was once again activated by a curiosity in the digital moving image, which seemed to me to be the counterpart of the stillness in analogue photography. Furthermore, my exploration of the gaze in the portrait works treats, with its subtle movement, the idea of presence and absence that constitutes the whole construction of the time-based image and links to my previous work Black Light, 2010. The theme of the night always allowed me to talk about the process, the latent image and to reveal the unseen. To sum up, my initial period of research into the theme of disappearance in photography together with the theme of the „nocturne“ from the romantics, links to my current interest in the subject of the limits of perception.
The crucial unique instant while triggering the photograph turned into duration while using long exposures, which I used a lot in my previous works. Now, through thinking about the construction of the digital moving image time again plays an important role and presents the idea that the image as such is never present as a whole (Videophilosophie, Maurizio Lazzarato). This intriguing insight links to the role of the observer, her perception and the question of where the actual image is created, and what it means if it never exists all at once? These reflections increased my curiosity in the origin of the image, which can be understood as the foundation that drives me in my current research. I am heading towards the construction and dissolution of the image, which moves between materiality and pure signal, between duration and instant; searching for the missing link and the space and time in between, at the threshold of abstraction.

Relation to larger context

Using a background in photography, I am exploring the electronic moving image towards the presentation of work in a video installation.

Workplan

The visual research is devided in two parts:

  • Recording of the footage (image and sound)
  • Tests and observations of the display in a dark room

Until now I have done some small experiments which help me to reflect about the graduation project.
For the next series of test shots, I will record an image sequence using long exposures to create still images, which will then be played back at 24 frames per second. My subjects will be a water surface, static buildings and the human figure. It is an experiment between duration and the instant, between distinct temporal operations and what lies hidden in long exposures through overlaying, condensing, and synthesis. During these test shots I will also investigate the stillness of the model in the portraits, the act of concentration, his or her focus on the recording camera and vice versa.

Thesis proposal

The shift from stillness to the moving image is based on my interest in the threshold as something that is in constant movement, and thereby articulates the theme of presence/absence and disappearance. In addition to this, the juxtaposition of the analog photographic image and the digital moving image evokes the question of indexicality and its materiality. My essay Black Box written in the second trimester explores what is being transformed or "lost" in the analog digital conversion. For the thesis I would like to key into this point and question the construction of the image itself. Is the image dissolved during the process of conversion? And when it is argued that the digital moving image is under constant construction, in constant flow, and therefore never there as a whole, where lies its origin and what or who is then responsible for the finally perceived image?

Bibliography

  • Maurizio Lazzarato, Videophilosophy
  • Henri Bergson, Matter and Memory
  • Laura U. Marks, How Electrons Remember
  • Gilles Deleuze, The Movement Image and The Time Image
  • Mary Ann Doane, The Emergence of Cinematic Time
  • Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer and Suspensions of Perception
  • Barbara and Joseph Anderson, The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited
  • Kaja Silverman, The Threshold of the Visible World
  • Between Stillness and Motion, Edited by Eivind Rossaak
  • Laura Mulvey, Death 24 Times a Second
  • Paul Virilio, L'Art à Pert de Vue
  • Tanizaki Junichiro, Praise of Shadows
  • TJ Clark, The Sight of Death
  • Daniel Arasse, Anachroniques