Just presented the first performance of  The Flashcard Sequences Part 1: Amsterdam 14.12.10 last night. I’ve uploaded a copy to Vimeo. Switch to High Definition and view in full screen for the full experience.

 

 

Since mobile phone video has been improving at such an alarming rate, I’ve renewed my interest in field/environmental a/v work, which was a strong focus for me through the 1990s, both in my solo work and with the group Social Interiors. I’ve found myself capturing moments or locations from the every day or my travels and have started making a series of short works based on these moments in time and place. The focus is on capturing the moment or a perspective with very modest means – nothing but a tiny hand held iphone. There are challenges, such as image stability due to lack of tripod and, as will be seen in the first work, clumsy/cold hands in the snow. I have tried to work with these instabilities as an aesthetic element and make them feel part of the work.

The Flashcard Sequences has thus made its way into the world.

The Flashcard Sequences comprises a series of short semi-improvisatory works produced with handheld mobile phone video and portable laptop production technologies. The production process is intentionally swift and the works are produced (often in hotel rooms) as quickly as possible following the image capture. These pieces function as snapshots which attempt to capture an underlying essence of a moment or place.

Amsterdam 14.12.10 is the first piece in the series, and was created during a residency at STEIM, Holland in December 2010. The harsh European winter of 2010/11 gave rise to heavy snowfalls, closing roads and bringing many essential transport services to a halt. The visual material consists of a series of static video shots containing patterns of snow falling from the sky. In this piece, the video source is digitally analysed and used to affect processing parameters in the audio domain. Such an approach attempts to find, and compositionally engage with, the direct structural relationships between the visual and sound materials whilst stopping short of direct and literal sonification. Such an approach aims to take transductive visual/sound mapping processes and bring them into creative dialogue with freely interpretive compositional processes.

You can read more about this work here.