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S/N A video installation exploring the emotional distance created and sometimes bridged by digital communication technologies

S/N is a video installation that explores the emotional distance created and sometimes bridged by digital communication technologies. It’s part of a larger body of work that looks at lighthouses and ship-to-ship communication as a way of discussing feelings of distance and proximity that the remote transmission of information by digital technologies can bring about. A lighthouse sends a very simple message that indicates its presence and position only. This is analogous to a range of online communication practices, such as social media status updates, that often prioritise presence and availability over depth or quality of content.

In this installation, a video of a murky sea breaking on a dark shale beach is front-projected onto a sheet of Perspex propped against the wall. The sky slowly shifts in colour and birds cross the frame, placing the image in the same temporal frame of reference as the viewer. Behind the Perspex and visible through it, a small white LED fades in and out, creating the illusion of a lighthouse or a vessel on the horizon. As the video reaches its conclusion it fades slowly to black. When the video projection is no longer present, the visual illusion of the seascape and lighthouse collapses, leaving the viewer contemplating a sheet of propped Perspex with a light behind it, reminiscent of nothing more Romantic than a laptop in sleep mode.

Exhibited in the group exhibition Prism 8, Orchard Centre, Sheffield, February 2011.

Exhibited in the group exhibition Nothing Ever Happens, OSR Projects, Yeovil, June 2012. Curated by Nia Metcalfe.

Exhibited in the two-person exhibition Michael Day & Nikola Uzonovski, Babel Art Space, Trondheim, Norway, November 2011.This exhibition was part of an artist's residency at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder, Trondheim, Norway. The residency was supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.