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Film Stills from "Coast"
Studio - Installation View
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" Coast" (2007-2008) 6mins Video Loop Twin Projection.
WORK IN PROGRESS
"Coast" is a twin projection
video installation, filmed in Slapton Devon, it uses experiential
video of the site, accurate archive film and reclaimed samples
of old feature films.
The work explores notions of place and
is in part, influenced by Virilio’s texts on the often-unwanted
reception of external media, which imposes itself on how
landscape is consumed; this he expressed in the quintessential
phrase ‘Hell of Images’ which he tries without
success to rid his mind of when in the act of perception.
The work takes tentative steps to ask questions
about ownership of archive and cultural memory, using factually
and geographically correct archive material and found imagery,
to explore rhythm and movement within a relationship that
spans not just the site itself, but also a cultural and
imaginative geographic space, where the viewer may exist
from time to time.
Through the process of making this film
I was interested in whether the viewer could experience
this video as being anything more than a breaking down of
form and structure.
The coastline of ‘South Hams’
Devon, and in particular Slapton Beach, where this video
was filmed, had a very specific geo-history. During World
War Two, thirteen villages were requisitioned and the area
sealed off. D-Day landing rehearsals took place, huge loss
of life was incurred, American troops buried hastily in
a farmer’s field and the whole episode kept quiet.
This is a place where history is at its
most relevant in understanding the geography of the site
and vice verse.
The idea of how we consume space, how
we understand a place where history is seemingly stuck to
the underbelly interested me, I felt a need to expose some
imaginative layers that I felt when I visited there, which
for me are very much part of what I view as the real spatiality
of place. The left hand projection is the sea, an insistent
roll of the tide that continues, unchanged. The threat and
power of the sea adds a tension and rhythm to the overall
visual information. The Twin Projection is seen as a short
impression, a flicker of time and tide colliding, shown
in juxtaposition to the other, the sound positioned laterally
to the viewing space.
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