I’ve been commissioned by the artists collective Brass Art to create videos of two of their exhibitions.

The first commission was to create a couple of films of their installation “that-which-is-not” at Bury Sculpture Centre. Here, I wanted to make the most of what video, rather than still imagery, can do to capture those features essential to the sculptures: physicality, space, change, movement, colour, light, shadows and reflections but, also, the atmosphere, the sound of the gallery. So, whilst I used the camera to record visual imagery which I use relatively straightforwardly, I also used it to record the sounds of the gallery and then manipulated these to create a complementary soundscape.

The first video, a short trailer or teaser for the exhibition, needed a different, more urgent pace and, so, I added a metronome style sound to the underlying soundscape:

The second video, designed to explore the exhibition in a more detail, needed a different atmosphere:

The second commission was to create two videos of a single piece of art – “Still Life No.3” – which Brass Art created for an exhibition at the Grundy Gallery in Blackpool. As they themselves describe the commission: “Brass Art were invited to make a new site-responsive installation to engage with the collections and history of Blackpool. The artists wanted to feature iconic elements of the seaside town, whilst further developing tropes integral to their collaborative practice. In re-imagining and re-animating a still life table they drew upon the idea of ‘the double’ and ‘the souvenir’ as well as metamorphosis through shadow play. The horses – vital, volatile beasts – are half-made, wave-like ominous forms. Their placement on the table is intended to suggest the otherworldly magic of the spinning carousel providing a temporal meter to the shadow-play.”

In creating the video pieces, it was important to capture the interplay between the figures on the table and their shadows on the gallery walls and, also, the play of light across the table. The soundscapes, like the artwork itself, also needed to draw on the sounds of a seaside town and for this I used distorted field audio and recreated fairground organ music.