Website and project development

Throughout my exploration of the materiality of digital video my ideas have constantly evolved and made me think about art in a way I had not thought about before. The materiality of digital video meant that viewing it did not have to be the same traditional projecting or normal monitor as technology has developed to the degree that moving image work was easily viewable on the internet and on portable media devices. This led to the final stage of Digital Interview the presentation, I had always toyed with the idea of just projecting the final versions of the interview however this did not feel right and did not represent the versatility of the digital medium. So when I came across the digital picture frames I thought that they were an ideal representation of the way that technology surrounds us and is subtly hidden away. They also fitted into the subject of the interview and played with the versatility of what digital media can do, as they were originally designed for still images.

I developed my idea around these digital picture frames and decided to create an installation for the exhibition and not just hang the frames of the wall. Bringing wallpaper designed for a private space into a public one also has implications of nostalgia and memory which backs up the subject matter of the interview. The installation may only have these two items the carpet and wallpaper in it as well as the picture frames because it subverts the idea of what a room is, if the room is empty it plays with the idea of memory and the fact that we remember certain things and forget others, however it is mainly designed to strengthen the viewers connection with the my uncle in the interview and draw them into it.

What I set out to do at the beginning of this project was to explore the materiality of digital video, I feel in doing this I have drawn out an aesthetic that I tried to disregard at the beginning and this was the idea that I wanted to be truly objective and try and avoid attaching any meaning to the images that the viewer would see. I’ve found that this has proved to be impossible and come to the conclusion that digital video is designed to capture information and a viewer interpretation of this information is inevitable so is part of the materiality of digital video.

I have continued to explore the screening of my work and have begun to develop my own website so after the viewer has seen the interview in the gallery space they can watch it in the privacy of their own home. Crossing the line of public and private seems to be another aesthetic of the digital and there appears to be no barrier for it, as long as the media device has power!

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