Recent, 2019
I have always had a deep desire for home, and safety. Even as a very young child, I fixated on my family’s plan for the day, wanting to know what to expect, insisting on an hour by hour schedule of events from the backseat of the car. My childhood was exceptional, focused on providing this sense of security that I placed so much importance on. The recklessness sometimes exhibited by adults felt dangerous and contagious. I have come to realize that things beyond my control are quite unnerving to me. As if their lack of control could erase me. This, of course, makes me long for control that much more.
In my last project, Fan footage, I was challenging my need for control by flirting with chaos. Pushing leaves towards a blowing fan, I was exploring the inevitability of chaos and acknowledging that some things will always be out of my control.
Just recently, I have started to explore the impacts of my overwhelming need to control myself and my world. Recent continues this meditation on control. Part of my attraction to the process of image making is the ability to manipulate and control the variables of the image. In this work, I am drawing attention to the small movements by which I control the environment of the lighting studio to prepare for a shoot. By filming in the lighting studio, I am drawing from previous projects of mine that address the contrived nature of the studio.
The continuous choppy loop of my preparations for a shoot, moments that occur ‘off camera’, the fidgeting process towards control, is the subject of this piece.
56 second video, loop