Solo Exhibition, August - September 2011
Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary, Canada
Focusing on fleeting, yet intimate, moments that occur throughout the day, this installation explores notions of time and memory, and the body’s potential to imply narrative through movement. The images presented reveal moments where something is happening even though nothing appears to be. In them, the body is engaged in quotidian motions such as getting dressed/ undressed, tying shoes, peeling fruit, sewing, stretching; motions which we engage in regularly and often in solitude. They are learned movements which our body performs automatically, without thinking. Because conscious thought is not required, and because we tend to engage in them in solitude, they offer a time for reflection and introspection. In this sense, the mind is both absorbed and disengaged (disengaged from the activity but absorbed in thought). Although the intimacy in the moment portrayed is not meant to be shared, it nevertheless invites the viewer to dwell upon it and to wonder what is really taking place.
These activities are not portrayed as a single snapshot in time but rather, they portray the time elapsed during the activity and the change in the body (from position, weight, direction) that occurs while engaged in a particular activity over a given duration of time. Thus the duration of time that is being presented is not defined by a start and end point, but rather time which is continuous. The body, as presented in these works is therefore also in continuous motion, so that in the instant presented, the body has already moved on from the activity and is absent.
The images presented are composites of both digital photographs and 360 degree, 3D scans of my body engaged in various tasks. Each activity was broken down into stages of motion, each stage documented separately and later combined into a single image. As digital recordings of the stages of motion, plotting the passage of time through human locomotion, the images function as a digital trace of something that took place during an unspecified moment past. What is left is a momentary glimpse of where the body was and a suggestion of the activity it was engaged in. In this way, the memory of the body, and the motions it employed in a specific task leave their vestige on the paper.
In these images I contrast the reality of the actual experience of movement with the apparent gap between the desire (and reason) for completing an action, and the mechanics of the movement itself. Thoughts and emotions experienced at the time necessarily affect the way that the movement is executed; small, intimate measures of movement imply a narrative even if the body doesn’t intend it. I am interested in the dichotomy of movement within stillness – although the moment portrayed may appear motionless, there is still movement, whether it is breath, subtle changes in the shift in position, weight, direction that occurs while being engaged in a particular activity over a given duration of time, or the implied continuous movement, from the moment before the instant portrayed to that which follows after that moment has passed.