Wildlife Documentary #7
40 seconds with sound,looping

Wildlife Documentary #15
40 seconds with sound,looping

These films examine the technology of representative documentation. #7, Flipbooks of seagulls derived from video footage have been through a digital editing process, are constructed, and choreographed reconstructed and then re-filmed. #15 is of flowers opening and closing. Time is played with and what appear to be visible events are usually invivble to the eye.

The flipbooks remind us that film/video technology still relies on an illusion of movement. The cinematic device of a film within a film, often to imply a past event, is mirrored in the two points of view in the video. Using a pre cinematic device within a video completes a cycle of technology. The images are video stills, and their re-presentation on video both allows us to see the images ‘come to life’, while denying any direct encounter with the physical form of the books, much less their living subjects. Accompanying sound is released when the flipbooks are operated increasing the sense of magic at the illusion encountered.

Offering a counterpoint to the drama and spectacle of conventional wildlife documentaries, this work elicits the same tendency to focus on those aspects of animal behaviour, which suggest human frailties and emotions. Offering a counterpoint to the drama and spectacle of conventional wildlife documentaries, this work elicits the same tendency to focus on those aspects of animal behaviour, which suggest human frailties and emotions.

A short loop of a starling, the same action repeated over and over.
As you watched it, the repetition began to seem like a nervous twitch of neurotic behaviour. The monitor was placed in the window to make the birds containment and isolation from nature more poignant