Monday 13 March 2017

"That is powerful" & on the radio again

The exhibition at the Forum in Norwich is open (& will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day until 1st April ). I've got to say that after all the struggle of the last 8 months putting together this new animated photomontage, I am extremely satisfied with the final result. Even just seeing the group photograph projected life-size is quite something, but to then see each of them growing through life towards their fate is moving even though I am beyond familiar with the material. There is one particular moment late on in the film that physically affects me every time I see it, almost as if my heart is being raised in my body. Amazing that a picture on a screen can achieve that - and not only for me. I've stood and watched it with another artist involved in the exhibition who without prompting said "That is powerful". Each of the artworks I've made (the animated tree film, the family tree drawings, the photomontages, the stained glass portraits, the new group photograph) give a different angle on this group photograph, but this is the one I personally find most moving and which would stand on its own without explanation in a gallery anywhere.

There were points in the last few weeks when I wondered whether I would get there. Firstly there were the tribulations with my video editing: the original video editor was taking 3 hours to render 1 minute of video (i.e. 60 hours to output the whole 20 minute film) and even then the quality of the images and transitions was poor. Moving to the new version of the software fixed those problems (it only takes 4 hours to output the whole film and the image is sharp as sharp and requires less computer storage - amazing). I then needed film of the field where the original group photograph was taken - so just a week ago I headed down to Wiltshire. I wasn't exactly sure what I was after but I arrived at ten to eight in the morning to weak sunshine and a bit of breeze with the air full of birdsong - and it was that which made it into the final edit. Given the grey and rain that poured on the days either side, it was almost as if I was being watched over (something I've felt at other times during this project). I hung around for a bit to see if I could improve on what footage and sound recordings I'd already collected but the weather just got worse (and I ended up being very grateful that the farmer's wife let me warm myself up next to her aga).

Then this last week I edited the soundtrack. If I ever do this again, I hope I will have the wisdom to go on some kind of course beforehand - but I didn't have time this time and made up for knowledge and experience with trial & error (lots of error) and some quality swearing - and it has worked.

It'll be interesting to see what the public makes of it. There hasn't been a big push on publicity for this, so we're mostly going to be depending on people visiting The Forum being curious - and at lunchtime I was interviewed by Matthew Gudgin for Drive Time on BBC Radio Norfolk. Sorry for the short notice, but he said it would be going out at 16.40 this afternoon (if you miss it, it'll be available on iPlayer to listen again - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04tlt62 is what I think will take you there).

Hope to see you at the exhibition - I'll be there both days of this coming weekend (18th-19th March).


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