What happens between 4-5am?

Abstract

My research involved the use of sound and the visual image, to show the development of time through a multi-screen installation that allowed the sixty minutes to unfold from a fixed camera position. The work looked at the use of multi-screen projections and what they can lend to an installation and how the audience understands them. This work also explores the idea of whether it is important to construct a narrative in an audio/visual installation for an audience or whether they would understand the concept without any manipulation. The concept of the piece is about what occurs between the hours of 4-5am. To help demonstrate my findings I decided to produce a series of films that all lasted for sixty minutes each. The films were unedited, fixed camera shots that observe the action to capture reality and never attempt to follow and construct one. I felt Andre Bazin’s technique of ‘pure cinema’ with long shots was the most appropriate way of achieving this. I believed the best way to illustrate this would be to build up the screens from a one screen painterly shot through to multi-screens progressing from a triptych to five, seven and finally a nine screen film which was full of images. The idea is to expose various spaces, their differences during the time period and suggest how all are occurring concurrently during this one solitary hour. In conclusion, it’s becomes obvious that a viewer of an installation can construct their own narrative. The viewer has the ability to construct their own structured narrative with a start, middle and end depending on when they entered the installation. The installation is important because it allowed the viewer to become immersed in the subject and interact with the films and not just become a passive observer. The use of natural sound added to the atmosphere created through the fixed camera films. The fixed camera filming allowed for observation of the time period capturing what was in front of the lens and never following the action, the use of multi-screens meant more information could be disseminated to the viewer without the need for film editing and manipulation. The multi-screen images allowed the viewer to generate their own perceptions of the time period. They also allowed the viewer to make links between the different locations, seasons and time zones.