MEDIUM SPECIFICITY

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

For this assignment I chose to explore the medium of film. At first I was quite stumped as to what I could do to express through film something unique to its intrinsic strengths and limitations. I decided that I wanted to do a project that explored the extremes of the medium, as well as perhaps some non-conventional uses. As we discussed in class, film, at its most basic, is just the capturing and reproduction of varying degrees of light. Also, in our day and age, film is almost always accompanied by audio, so I decided to explore the extremes of this medium as well, mostly to emphasize and enhance the visual aspect.

Because I knew I would be taking the medium (and therefore any equipment I used) to its maximum levels, I decided it would be best to use my own stuff. I have an old 8.0 megapixel Cannon digital camera that can take video, so I decided to use that to capture the necessary footage. For the audio, I edited it post-filming in Pro-Tools. (No original audio from the footage was used.) The film consists of 30 seconds of maximum exposure, during which I stood outside my apt and filmed the sun (with my own eyes shielded of course); 30 seconds of minimum exposure, during which I placed the camera inside a box and sealed it shut; and a 30 second shot of a painting of a desert I received as a gift from a convert on my mission. The accompanying audio is 30 seconds of pink noise (slightly less grating on the ears than white noise) at maximum volume (clipping), fading down into 30 seconds of silence, and the last 30 seconds are an excerpt from the tune “Maid with the Flaxen Hair,” performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Maximum volume accompanies maximum exposure, minimum volume minimum exposure, and the painting a classical standard. Through the course of the short piece you are taken to 3 of the four boundaries of the medium: maximum light, minimum light, and minimum movement.