My shelves at home are filled with early-2000s compact cameras, SD and micro SD cards, VHS tapes, Hi8 tapes, a 5-inch portable television, several VCR’s, and a bucket full of wires and batteries. The technology often comes from local house clearances so, rather morbidly, death is unavoidable in my work. There’s also the device death cycle - all these formats are obsolete. The young have eaten the old.
My video practice shares post-digital concerns, that old devices shouldn’t just be revived but actively repurposed in relation to digital media technologies. For example, Scarface (2018) involved using 4 VCR’s to digitise the same tape of a subject falling asleep. The videos are portrait and spliced together to sit in a row. Each portrait reveals a feature specific to VHS playback: a tracking bar, snow due to dusty tape heads, shaking due to failed tracking. In a time where apps and filters attempt to procedurally-generate these qualities, I felt it was important to reassert the natural and erratic unpredictability of VHS’s broken aesthetics.
My main aim for my work is to avoid perfection. Video sharing sites have become oversaturated with polished content. This sets a precedent as mistakes glare at you in high resolution. Hito Steyerl’s text “In Defence of the Poor Image” has inspired a strategy to avoid this. I have reclaimed 360p and 4:3 in my videos because I don’t think scruffy is bad. I think scruffy allows you to focus on the important bits
Projects
- "This is NOT my DVD" (2019)"This is NOT my DVD" (2019) is a 7-minute 30-second video piece consisting of footage found off of a home video. The DVD was bought from a local charity shop despite the sale of such an item contradicting their policies. You're also lead to question whether the family handed it in intentionally or accidentally. Either way, the title is given where I bear no connection to the people who recorded it. Even though there is nothing explicit or shocking about the footage, there is a palpable sense of
- "Tougher Than The Rest" (2019)For my Final Major Project, I created Tougher Than The Rest (2019). The piece is a 6-minute 9-second dual-channel video, installed on adjoining portrait screens for my graduate show. The title is a reference to the 1988 song by Bruce Springsteen. The piece is intended as a video portrait. Here, both digital and analogue footage serves to prompt you of the effect different lenses have on cultural perception.
- "Scarface" (2018)“Scarface” (2018) is a 23-minute 3-second, multi-channel video exhibited as a projected installation. The video features four portrait images of the artist falling asleep to the 1983 film of the same name. The film is not seen but can be heard. Muffled in the background, Tony is heard arguing with his Mother. The piece bears all the hallmarks of faulty VHS tapes such as snow, poor tracking, hold lines and static. It serves to explore why we fetishise these aesthetics when they are deemed undesir
- VHS Degradation: Portrait of EricAfter editing together a montage of digital portrait clips of Eric, I used a media player to display the footage on my television at home. Using a VHS camcorder, I then filmed the television screen. I digitised the analogue footage before placing it on the media player in place of the original sequence. I repeated this process of recording the screen on VHS another 9 times. With each recording, the original clarity is lost a little more. The result is an abstracted sequence of green and purple l
- "The Girl Chewing Gum" pastiche @ Kiosk 7, CopenhagenThis video serves as documentation of a group sound piece created at Kiosk 7, Copenhagen. The sound piece is a response to the view of the street from the gallery. Each instrument corresponds to something happening in the street. The piece was inspired by John Smith’s “The Girl Chewing Gum” (1976). The video is projected onto the backs of the prints we made during our time in Christiania. From a certain angle, the projected street view lines up with the window’s view. Artists: Lucy Abbott Danie
Projects credited in
- Transfer'Transfer' presents the forced symbiosis of the human and its inhuman counterpart as two bodies intimately pass this malevolent force between one another. Filmed directly to VHS tape then transferred to a digital format, the production of the film mirrors the evolution of the inhuman force as it grows to become more intwined with contemporary human existence.
- PitchblendeThe project 'Pitchblende' builds upon and extracts narratives from the various physical and chemical processes of uranium mining. The act of mining for such material feeds the inhuman force, a recursive force born from the desire to satiate demand, technology. 'Pitchblende' follows the inhuman force as it attempts to undo itself, and return back to its original hermetic state.
Work history
Project PlannerCortex Creatives
Bournemouth, United KingdomFreelance
Assisting the founders of Cortex Creatives in planning events, sponsorships, interviews, video, general content creation and their zine.
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Arts EditorFanny Pack
Bournemouth, United KingdomFreelance
Skills
- Art Editor
- Video Editing
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Green Screen
- Projection Mapping
- Picture Editing
- Creative Direction
Education
BA Fine ArtArts University Bournemouth
Bournemouth, United Kingdom
The study of contemporary art, reflecting on societal issues and following self-initiated and driven research and experiments,
Awards
Venice FellowshipBritish Council
The Venice Fellowships is a competitive programme that allows successful applicants to spend a month stewarding the British Pavillion of the 2018 Architectural Biennale. I will also be expected to undertake my own research project under the financial support and guidance of the British Arts Council.