I have made several videos from Quai du Vert Galant at the point where the Seine flows back together after flowing around Île de la Cité, the main island of Paris, at different times of day. These are shot hand-held, looking down at the play of light on the moving and changing texture of the water, and nothing else. For this work, it was important for me to begin with something carried in my pocket. A tool of my time. The duration of each shot determined by the limits of its memory. In the moment, attending the place. No tripod or external sound. Resolving power and image quality manifest the relationship between light, lens and sensor. I gaze at the beauty of sunset on the small screen on the back of the electronic device I hold between myself and the real world.
Shot in real time of 10 minutes, these have been slowed to a playing time of 1 hour. At this rate, these abstract patterns of fluttering colors can almost be viewed as a rapidly changing sequence of still images while still embracing the continuity of film. Ambient sound, consisting mostly of conversation in a variety of languages from this popular picnic spot, becomes deep, resonant and unintelligible.
3 of these moving images, morning, evening, and night, are projected at full height directly on the walls of the darkened gallery. They play continuously and simultaneously, creating a rich and mesmerizing environment of repetitive patterns of light and color juxtaposed in a deep, randomly overlaid sonic space. Although the original location of the making of these images provides conceptual significance, the primary content of this installation is visceral stimulation, via abstract, repetitive patterns of light and sound, induced by the environment itself.