Isolated Frame(s)

A quick transmission from Portland.  Had a fantastic couple of days with Leigh-Ann Pahapill and Lisa Zaher, as usual.  Extending our ongoing conversation/continual questioning of how/when/where meaning is located within experience and representation.  They had their first chance to see the triple-projection of Goldfields installed in a gallery, as opposed to on the screen of a computer.  Lots of good talk about the nature of experiencing the simultaneous streams within one space, but without the body having to be fixed in any one position.  And subsequent chatting about the role of focus in relation to both the camera eye as well as the spectator’s focal shifts. 

Discussing the relationship between subject matter (the particularities of the space – the Goldfields region) and the broader subjects of the work led to more thinking on framing and positioning (both literally in terms of camera placement as well as culturally, conceptually, methodologically – negotiating within particular histories of photographic practice).  This I think is going to be helpful as I continue with my recent work (see my earlier post, Frame Follows Focus) which seems to be moving toward working in these kinds of long strips of space, butting “isolated frames” up next to one another and in some instances overlapping and pressing in a manner that is a bit disconcerting (both optically and psychologically). 

Yeah, lots, lots, lots to think about again.  I’ll close with a portion of a Hollis Frampton quote that seems to almost serve as a metaphor for the manner in which the conversations between Leigh-Ann, Lisa and myself seem to unfold – looking around in all directions and grabbing thoughts from one another, adding them to the ever looping strip of film, occasionally plucking out the perfect snippet.

“A polymorphous camera has always turned, and will turn forever, its lens focused upon all the appearances of the world. Before the invention of still photography, the frames of the infinite cinema were blank, black leader; then a few images began to appear upon the endless ribbon of the film.

A still photograph is simply an isolated frame taken out of the infinite cinema.”