October 2019 – Liam Porrett Blog

Over the course of this week, I conducted some more research and thought into my idea, that is ultimately extending from some concepts in my previous semester work. This extension is largely the way it was presented, essentially in a grid like format, I found to closely resemble the screens of a CCTV panel.

While also wanting to narrow down the the concept more from just a rider traversing down a mountain bike trail. By exploring this CCTV concept and how it creates an almost non-human feeling to the work.

Instead of having the rider loop through the frame constantly, the rider will continue through frames, as though they are being un-knowingly filmed as they ride down the trail. Essentially the work becomes less about just the rider and more about the landscape the rider is traveling through. To create this feeling of surveillance I will role camera for 2-3minutes each side of the rider passing through this will allow for the clip to play on the grid whilst the rider is in other frames, similar to how a surveillance camera would operate whilst no-one is in the frame.

A smaller scale example of this is in my 2nd prototype. Although the clips freeze-frame instead of continuously play, the idea is still very much the same in which I want the rider to continue into one frame and leave another, ultimately creating a circuit instead of an array of constant loops.

PROTOTYPE 2

Surrounding this concept of CCTV, a work known as ‘Visitors To A Gallery’ by a London artist known as Stanza. This digital artwork uses surveillance tracking to track visitors as they enter the gallery. The surveillance clips are then displayed on the walls of the gallery space.

Although Stanza’s work is created live, with real people that are un-knowinly being filmed, I have still been able to draw from some of the concepts Stanza has presented. Stanza’s work essentially creates a parallel universe that he calls a “Parallel Reality”. He further goes on to mention that “everything is or will be tracked. The patterns we make, the forces we weave, are all being networked into retrievable data structures that can be re-imagined and sourced for information. These patterns all disclose new ways of seeing the world”. (2019)

In my own work, I also want to explore this new way of viewing. Focusing on something such as mountain bike riding and presenting it in a way that it would never be presented. As the thought of CCTV cameras planted throughout a forest would never cross someones mind, it opens up a whole new scope of viewing opportunity in terms of mountain bike riding, something that would usually be captured on a GoPro in POV.