Output details

The Landscape Confronts the Camera

Specifications: 2011 (revised 2013), 45m, 16:9, HD (720p), colour, stereo.

For projection in a gallery space or cinema.

Synopsis

The piece consists of a series of video images showing a coastal landscape in mid Wales. These images are interrupted by a wandering photographer. The stills captured by the photographer are superimposed over the video footage at the moment of exposure.

Conference Presentations

MeCCSA Conference, Derry, 10th January 2013. http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/meccsa2013/programme.php. Presentation with clips.

Research Questions include:

1. How can a creative work bring into focus the differences between photographic media, especially in the area of the representation of temporality?

2. By superimposing still images and video footage taken from different positions, The Landscape Confronts the Camera forces the viewer to ‘see’ a landscape from two positions in space at once, and thus disrupts or challenges the supposed ‘Quattrocento perspective’ of the camera. What are the consequences and implications of this challenge?

3. The video asks a question in response to the concept of ‘suture’ developed by Daniel Dayan, Jean-Pierre Oudart, Stephen Heath and others. In The Landscape Confronts the Camera, the ‘cut’ to a new shot (the moment where a superimposed still appears over the video) is often roughly a reverse of the initial video image. Rather than ‘disguising’ the presence of the camera as is usual in shot/reverse-shot editing (according to ‘suture theory’), the image shows the filming video camera itself. What are the implications of disrupting the usual function of shot/reverse-shot editing, as formulated by the theorists of ‘suture’?

4. What are the consequences of juxtaposing an ‘artistic’ approach to creative practice, focussing on formal impact and strategies, with a ‘realist’ documentary approach focussing on the recording and representational capacity of media forms?

Documentation: Blu-Ray; H264 file on data-dvd; CD-R with extended version of this discussion; personal website.