Video "Portraits"
Short clips highlighting my major pieces from the 2011 to 2012.
Each portrait is displayed individually and life sized on a vertical monitor.
Staring Contested:
My purpose here was to investigate human perceptions of nonverbal communication cues, specifically in regards to eye contact and gaze. My strategy for this entailed editing out the moments when my subjects blinked, creating an intense continuous stare. It was my first experience with video as a tool to challenge a viewer’s gaze and explore notions of mutual objectification.
Conversation:
This next piece was a study of two people gazing at each other while being filmed. Their subtle reciprocal expressions interested me, and I used them as material for creating an installation where the viewer is caught between two monitors with figures seeming to react to each other, but the viewer can only see one side of the interaction at a time. The use of separate monitors suggests a sense of isolation and detachment in our communications.
Joyous:
One thing which interests me in these videos is the sense of disconnect in the viewer’s understanding of the subjects and their context. That is one reason why I did not include sound. The figures are trapped in their own performative capsules and we are drawn in even though we lack clues as to what is causing their behavior.
Past Notes:
This was another piece exploring that notion of a performative capsule, but one in which figures are interacting between their isolated spaces. There are moments where the interactions sync up between monitors, but also moments where their connections fall out of sync, forcing the viewer to question their assumption that the figures ever really existed in the same space at the same time.
Awkwarder:
An important evolution in my strategy involved directing my subjects to tap into specific sets of defined emotions. They were prompted to express certain aspects of themselves which were difficult or awkward. I then set about installing multiple environments where a viewer is surrounded by and confronted by monitors depicting these various figures.