Video Portraits
In collaboration with professional composer and pianist Patrick Ytting I started creating video portraits. Ytting had a theory that music can transport a listener in to a transe like state, that which is sublime and transcendental. To enhance the possibility of confirming this theory we filmed different music student in a church. Irving Penn proved space essential to heighten certain emotions in his 'Close Encounters' series. Influenced by this I was determined that space was very much important for this experiment to be successfull. No space felt more appropriate than a church as it provided great acustics as well as encouraged a transcendental experience. My methodology was not intended as ideal approach to portraiture, but rather a scientific grounded one based on the hypothesis that music causes instant physiological changes in the attentive listener and that mixing music works from more distant key relationships will increase the occurence of peak experiences such as tunnel vision and a feeling of experiencing transcendence. Both artists Bettina von Zwehl and Frances Kearney have previously done work focusing on people in complete concentration or at extreme emotional states, such as deep sleep etc, and was an influence to me in this work. I decided to experiment with the moving image, to take advantage of it’s different approach to time. Using video I was able to capture the sitter's journey from being aware of the camera in to a state of deep concentration.
In collaboration with professional composer and pianist Patrick Ytting I started creating video portraits. Ytting had a theory that music can transport a listener in to a transe like state, that which is sublime and transcendental. To enhance the possibility of confirming this theory we filmed different music student in a church. Irving Penn proved space essential to heighten certain emotions in his 'Close Encounters' series. Influenced by this I was determined that space was very much important for this experiment to be successfull. No space felt more appropriate than a church as it provided great acustics as well as encouraged a transcendental experience. My methodology was not intended as ideal approach to portraiture, but rather a scientific grounded one based on the hypothesis that music causes instant physiological changes in the attentive listener and that mixing music works from more distant key relationships will increase the occurence of peak experiences such as tunnel vision and a feeling of experiencing transcendence. Both artists Bettina von Zwehl and Frances Kearney have previously done work focusing on people in complete concentration or at extreme emotional states, such as deep sleep etc, and was an influence to me in this work. I decided to experiment with the moving image, to take advantage of it’s different approach to time. Using video I was able to capture the sitter's journey from being aware of the camera in to a state of deep concentration.
