Below is the final two cuts of my latest work, 'Process and Perception' and 'Chronos'. They start as the same work but have alternative endings. The first video 'Chronos' is designed to be played looped while the second video 'Process and perception' is designed with a defined beginning and end point.
LLOYD EVANS - Chronos (final cut - low res) from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.
In the first video I simply wanted to create a cyclical loop so that the end of the work brings the viewer back to the beginning. As previously mentioned this was to question the separation of art and reality as different and defined concepts. I also tried to negate what I perceive as an art and reality heiarachy where art is subordinate to the perceived truth of reality.
The title Chronos refers to the greek notion of time:
"The Greeks had two notions of time: Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is the concept of time as a measure, a quantity that changes in a uniform and serial order. Chronos is, in a sense, empty; without content or meaning beyond its own linear progression. Its is when nothing happens, and goes on happening.
Karios, on the other hand, is a kind of time charged with promise and significance. It is time that saturates time…. The phrase 'the fullness of time' evokes the kairological, in a way it expresses the idea that time can be fulfilled and made anew through a profound change or rupture of some kind, making what happens thereafter radically unlike what has come before"
Paul Chan - A Time Apart - 2010
Reading the work with this lens the periods of relative stability during both the animation and forest video become 'Chronos' while the liminal ruptures created by the fire transitions become 'Kairos'
Originally I titled the work Chronos and Kairos however I wanted to question the idea of the 'Kariological'. When seen in loop the significant moment, that rupture charged with promise starts to become mundane, expected. Through the act of repetition the kairological quickly reverts back to Chronological. The astonishing act when seen again and again, becomes boring. This feeds into the concept of a Stuplime - astonishment mixed with boredom which saturates and defines post-modern experience.
In her book 'Turbulence and flow in film' Yvette Biro discusses how time functions in the context of the moving image. Drawing on idea of 'Chronos' which Biro describes as "Chronos, as we denote the concept of the clock, of physical time, proceeds according to its own rigid laws: time is passing; Monday is followed by Tuesday, night by morning.' She theories that this disembodied time is separate to 'Tempus', a more dynamic embodied human time. 'Tempus' like 'Kairos' is the present 'expanded' with possibilities, only here time is rooted in the experiences of the individual.
'the processing of impressions and experiences, this human time we call Tempus, this reality, a micro-level compared to the big one, is unforeseeable. The interconnection of so many causes played out on the field of acceptance-rejection results in such a complex, ballooning mass that Tempus will (might) get the upper hand over Chronos.'
Yvette Biro - Turbulence and flow in film - 2008
Therefore the internal time frame of 'Tempus' is affected by our experience and understanding of the external world 'The human experience of time is genuinely sensitive to the emotional quality of time. Our perception is essentially affected by the emotional weight and content of external occurences.'
Yvette Biro - Turbulence and flow in film - 2008
LLOYD EVANS - Process and perception - Final cut from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.
This second video 'Process and perception' was shot in response to a question posed by tutors, they questioned wether the work was the 'process' (all my experiments, prototypes etc) or 'outcomes'. Reflecting on this question I have begun to look at my work in a slightly different light. Ultimately it is the process and investigation which sustains me and keeps me pushing the work forward. The works increasingly have a performative nature as shooting becomes more complex and physical, including this process in the work itself changes the reading again and takes the work in a new direction.
During the shooting of this cut technical issues arose and the outcome is not 100% as planned.
1) The first section of the clip is slightly out of focus.
2) When revealed the third screen is paused! it was meant to be playing already.
3) In the final sequence the last screen was meant to burn away on the image of the studio door, however I had to shot this part in damp conditions and the screen took longer to burn than expected. As I had the clip set to loop it jumps back to the beginning of the clip which is me burning the charcoal animation.
I feel I have taken this idea as far as it needs to go at present and other works need more attention which are ultimately more likely to be used in the MA exhibition. (I will try and to reshoot this at a later date)
Deleuze - Cinema 1
In 'Cinema 1' Deleuze theorises the idea of the Movement-image,
"Figures are not described in motion, rather, the continuity of movement describes the figure'
(Deleuze - Cinema 1 p5)
Here the moving image is not capturing or documenting but creating anew image which is "capable of thinking the production of the new" (Deleuze - Cinema 1 p7)
In ‘Matter and Memory’ Bergson breaks experience down into three parts; Perceptions, Affections and actions. Perceptions cause affections and affections cause actions.Building on Bergson’s work Deleuze applies this formulae to cinematography. Thus there are three types of cinematic movement-images:
Perception images (that focus on what is seen), Affection images (that focus on expressions of feeling) and Action images (that focus on the duration of action).
Applied to my work :
Animation of trees - Affection image - My subconscious response to the memory of the forest, what I feel about the experience of being in this environment.
Video of forest – Perception image - The forest as documentary reality.
Flame transitions – Action image - Liminal passages which signal change. (Kairos)
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