Janet Cardiff Slideshow Presentation
Above, I have inserted the slideshow presentation I did on Janet Cardiff’s site specific performance Her Long Black Hair, which has now become one of the major inspirations for mine and Heather’s Drill Hall piece.
The main aspects we have taken from Janet Cardiff’s piece are the idea of audio, guiding you to a certain place where you then look at a photo that has been taken in that location in the past.
The reason we are doing this is because I enjoyed Janet Cardiff’s piece, and I particularly enjoyed the way she linked the past to the present simply by instructing the audience member to look at a photo at a certain place and then describing the moment that she took it. This is something Heather and I will be able to effectively achieve by using the photos of Betty and Albert, and the other photos of the Drill Hall we received from one of their grandchildren.
“On the one hand artworks define their own unique space, and on the other they are designed to tackle the accusations of irrelevance levelled at them by new modes of social and philosophical thought – indeed, since the 1960s, artworks have often developed into (close approximations of) social and philosophical thought. Which is why walking, as an activity that is usually invisible but that can become visible, that is usually unremarked but that can become fully choreographed, that is usually useful but that can become useless, and that always dallies between conscious and unconscious decision-making, is attractive.”(Phillips, 2005, 509) This is a quote from my presentation that has also influenced our decisions, the fact that walking, which is normally not really anything except walking, can become artwork when it is choreographed. I find this is an interesting concept that I would like to explore.
Phillips, A. (2005) Walking and Looking. Cultural Geographies In Practice, 12: 507 – 513.