stereo landscape (video work)

compound eye: something i have been working on for the last few weeks through both my video and print work is the idea of a compound eye in relation to viewing and experiencing landscape and landscape imagery – not from a single viewpoint (attributed to male gaze) but from a multiple view or compound eye that might include views from different viewpoints at different scales or positions running simultaneously. this also stems from my curiosity about ways of viewing the landscape from a less binary perspective of male = afar and female = close up.

(screen shots of landscape 1 and 2)

(screen shots of landscape 3)

stereo lens: related to view and eye, i am also starting to explore and question my use of lens based processes in relation to my landscape work. for these rough cut experiments, i used 2 lenses (digital i-phones as formats match) to capture a view of landscape and play with the direction the eye might be lead, like 2 eyes in on one head that could potentially move separately or together. i initially imagine these captures playing as separate  projections or on separate monitors but i edited them together side by side as a split screen video to see how they relate to each other and what potential they might have. i also imagine that while they would play simultaneously, a narrative (possibly a voice over) would link them – one starting and the other taking over, or maybe sounds over and back or even together at some points. this really plays with the notion of stereo in terms of visuals and sound, in fact ‘stereo’ came up for discussion during my recent tutorial with P.G. and C.S. i intend to continue to collect stereo landscape captures with the view to editing with a uniting narrative across them… because that is the ‘why’ and the ‘why’ is landscape, body and gender that continues to interest me.

(stereo landscape 2)

(stereo landscape 3)

---

stereo and ‘testing my boundaries’ 

video ‘open calls’: having submitted one of my video works to the craft council ‘real to real’ craft film festival last week, i have been wanting to find some kind of opportunity to reach an audience for my stereo landscape work which i have been gathering and working on an off on over the last few months. again, searching through open calls, i came across an opportunity to submit work which i feel might allow me to reach an audience for this work and also help me to put some shape on this work in progress.

video submission 2: ‘Every Second Counts’ 30 second films as part of Strangelove Time-Based Film Festival. brief: all time-based genres, 30 seconds duration, responding to the theme of duration in the fast-paced consumer culture of digital media, responding to 30 seconds the length of an advert, the average time to look at an artwork, 12 breaths or 0.008th of an hour. location: launching in the Photographer’s Gallery, London, travelling to Turner Contemporary Gallery Margate, Fabrica in Brighton and Folkestone Quarterhouse. when: 23rd February to 24th March. cost: $7. deadline: 4th Feb. technical specification: mp4 format through filmfreeway. links: https://filmfreeway.com/StrangeloveTime-basedMediaFestival and https://filmfreeway.com/help/article/16013/what-format-do-you-recommend-for-video-uploads

process: as i have said in a previous post, i have been excited by the idea of considering and/or adding some new elements to my work which video open call briefs tend to prescribe, while also knowing that i need to keep the focus of my work relevant to my line of enquiry re landscape, body and gender (or do i?). this 30 second brief seems to resonate with what i have been doing in terms of looking, engaging with and experiencing the landscape through the body and through the lens – actively looking through an embodied process and an embodied lens. over the last few days, i have been working on some of the stereo lens work that i have collected, playing around with duration in terms of looking. i cut the running frames in an out, playing around with interrupting the act of looking with deliberate not looking, which echoes to the brief time we take to look at anything – artwork, advert, landscape or otherwise. struck by the question, where is the body when we look away or don’t pay attention – i added a sound of the heartbeat which continues throughout the act of looking and not looking – returning to and emanating from the body as any phenomenologist would.

stereo (2019) for every second counts submission

stills from stereo (2019)

submission: the submission required that i sign up for filmfreeway which is a platform for sharing film and video work. although not compulsory, i included a short statement/description of the work (see below) and an artist bio.

statement/ description for submission: ‘Stereo’ (2019) is part of Elaine Crowe’ series of work ‘Landscape and I’ which explores the landscape from a gendered perspective. Countering the viewing of landscape from a single fixed viewpoint, ‘Stereo’ explores how landscape is experienced and viewed through multiple views or a compound eye. Running for the average time we give to viewing art, views of the landscape are interrupted by deliberate looking and not looking. Continuous throughout, the sound of a heartbeat exposes the act of looking as the embodied practice in time and space.

postscript: great news i got an email to say it has been accepted and will become part of the festival, showing in various art venues in London, Margate and Folkestone. this is particularly exciting because it is the first time sending my video work to an ‘open call’ like this and a great opportunity to extend my audience.

---

---

bini oculus  – stereo landscape continued….

bini oculus: i responded to another ‘open call’ brief for the ‘one minutes’ video archive etc. last week, using some footage i recorded of the landscape using 2 i-phones simultaneously. the ‘open call’ brief suggested alienation amongst other things, so i wanted to explore landscape through the strangeness of the human eye’s binocular vision where the left and right eye see through slightly different frames – one more left than the other (parallax) and combine these to form one frame or field of vision. binocular vision is defined as vision using two eyes that have overlapping fields of view and create visual perception of depth or stereopsis – all of which reinforce my exploration of stereo landscape. the term binocular stems for the latin bini meaning double and oculus meaning eye – double eye. i am interested in how this act of looking applies to the framing of the landscape and how it might suggest multiple views  – again looking at challenging the single and fixed perspective.

eye dominance: one of the things i came across when reading up on binocular vision was how we have a dominant eye where we tend to favour visual information from one eye over the other, which can change depending on where our gaze is. it becomes very apparent when looking through a stereoscope when i was working on my screen print series. anyway, wanting to revisit some of my unused gathered two-camera footage again, i experimented with superimposing the frames on top of each other as well as side by side as i did in my ‘stereo landscape’ work.

 

reflection: i think visually the frames playing side by side are more dynamic and seem to resonate with the multiple/compound frame that i have been exploring. the second video with the superimposed frames feels like they need to be more balanced in terms of transparencies or left and right frame/eye could take over from each other at different times – this could be something i play around with. i do like the way it links back to the body in terms of binocular vision and eye dominance. for the moment this second video is a rough cut which i can continue to work on or at least keep in the back of my mind as continue to gather, record and explore. i suppose there is scope to experiment with projecting multiple videos on top of eachother or overlapping. this could be very different than overlapping in editing. worth a try. i am yet to hear back from the ‘open call’ but should hear in june sometime. the ‘one minutes’ seems to be something i am interested in exploring as a genre – maybe because it puts ‘time’ at the forefront of my lens based work. in terms of film-making, it feels a little like writing poetry versus prose. and after all my recent screen printing, it feels good to be back at video work too. good to have the multiple ways of working running side by side.