Output details

Now and Again

Two new works were commissioned for this exhibition at Southampton City Art Gallery (2012). Now and Again (also the exhibition’s title) is a video projection onto four sides of a large central box in the gallery. Four views are projected at 90-degree angles looking in on a public square in Southampton, defined by a medieval wall and modern developments. Figures move through this common space as spectators in the gallery circumnavigate the box.

Containment is a set of six independent videos running concurrently on separate monitors. Each shows details of a domestic interior and its inhabitants, isolating items and joins them through the edit. It is a moment in time perpetuated by the repeating sequence.

In Now and Again I worked with a cameraman, a sound artist and local people to create what appeared initially to be incidental simultaneous action seen from four sides but the action was rehearsed and repeated four times. The doppelganger effect was felt by changes in light and discrepancies in the action. The sound in Containment gave a sense of continuity to the separate images. Movement was implied by the appearance or disappearance of figures, continuing an interest in the relationship between video and painting and also between the performer and camera.

The works explore an ambiguous sense of time, through both progression in the sequence and stasis in the repetition. The research draws on a broader context of image making, particularly painting, where stillness and a sense of time are conveyed in different ways, especially, the composite images of Jan Van Eyck, where plausible interiors are constructed with different elements studied separately and brought together as if they had coexisted.

The exhibition was supported by National Lottery through Arts Council England with Artsadmin, Southampton City Council, The Friends of Southampton's Museums, Archive and Gallery.