ACTIONS

ACTIONS was created from a residency at The Merz Barn in Elterwater, Cumbria in 2016.  All the video footage was shot using a Go Pro HD camera that has no viewfinder, so much of the footage came from shooting from the hip, or using the environment as a tripod.  ACTIONS  is a kind of anti-vlog, a reaction against the world of vlogging.  The work mimics many of the technical production aspects found in vlogs, but the content is disjointed and abstract.  I wrote out a series of simple, random physical actions and recorded myself following them, along with some equally random colloquial words that can have a kind of emotion or meaning attached to them in the right context.

I’m interested in the Vlog as a topic of social debate; the younger generation are now growing up in a world where they have a limitless supply of information at their fingertips, so how do they filter through it all and formulate balanced decisions?  The vlog has now become a primary learning tool for social and emotional development in young people today; it appears that vlogs are where many young people turn to for answers, advice, opinions.  I wonder what the potential effects are of this new online, solitary form of emotional development.

‘ACTIONS’ is about the necessity of physical, tangible experiences, the notion of risk taking, experimenting and ‘doing’, in an attempt to try and make sense of things.  To engage the senses fully, feel the weight of the body connecting the ground, and trust the senses to help the brain process and filter new information, in a profoundly sensory world.