Ocean (2012)

“Ocean starts with a recollection image — a still image of the ocean as seen from a beach. However, it is animated by the sound of waves. Then the still gives way to close-up video footage of the breakers, which then change into long distant footage of ‘moving waves’, returning to the close up images of the surf. Unexpectedly, the still image reappears, like a memory, a recollection, causing a distancing not so much in space but in time — as if one became, while watching the present, aware of its past. Then the close-up footage takes over again with no time to reflect on the past — this is movement as action. And again the still image appears, as distancing factor, as a means to create an awareness of the juxtaposition of ‘virtual’ and ‘actual’ time …Ocean instrumentalises the gap to engage with time as multiplicity of duration. It is the gap between moving footage and still image, also the gap between figurative, indexical images and their absence when they dissolve into ‘blue void’; lastly, the gap between audio-visual ‘images’ and the short fading into silence, a ‘minute’ interference, before it all starts again.”

Andrea Thoma. 2014. “The (Everyday) Image as One of Many”, International Journal of the Image, Vol 5 Issue 1.

Back Garden (2012)

“The piece explores a ‘back garden’ where private dwelling encounters the proximity and distance of neighbourhood, of the outside, the other, the public. The video is filmed in a single take using a close-up shot of two pieces of clothing on a washing line fluttering in the wind. One of them is a sheet, canvas-like — void, or curtain-like — veil. At times the two garments (light purple and orange) move apart to open the view to what lies behind and now becomes visible — (green) plants in front of a fence … The visual, almost abstract scenario meets a more figurative, even narrative dimension through the sound track, which runs parallel but seems of another order — an index of the world out there.”

Andrea Thoma. 2013. Thought Dwellings: Time and Place in Painting, Photography and Video, Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Leeds.

A selection of earlier video works (stills)