Portraits and Particulars

Portraits and Particulars is a 35-minute group of 10 titles produced between 2004 and 2006 first presented as a single series under this title at the CogCollective in October 2006. It has subsequently been exhibited at the Media Arts Festival Osnabrueck 28 April 2007 and as part of a four hour ‘retrospective’ at the Palais de Baux Arts, Brussels, 16 June 2007. The work represents a new direction focussing on characteristics of digital video and photography quite distinct from film and analogue video - an absence of the 'tactile' and traces of medium in the image. This ‘lack of medium’ undermines metaphor (the universal) through ultra-specificity. This series explores this specificity through elements of portraiture, person or place, and by focussing on isolated moments.

As examples of the issues addressed by the series, 'Critical Moments One' (a learning moment of a child aged one year), is inspired by the detailed observation of his children by Jean Piaget. 'Unforgettable' explores the different camera responses of four females from four generations of the same maternal line. 'Of Keys and Beauty', 'Anthony Dundee', and 'Waiting for Ian', all originate from still photographs where the lack of movement in the context of cinema becomes linked directly to the isolation of time fragments. The title 'H2O-0C-24.02.06-12.01GMT - 03,50.40W - 50.16.30N' reflects the coming inevitability of ultra-specific meta-tagging of digital images with, for example, time, date, temperature and location. ‘Lecture to an Academy' - a portrait of Peter Gidal, superimposes layers of voice and gesture. DENISINED - SINEDENIS is a portrait of the artist Dennis Openheim from four stills rotated in a palindrome within a palindrome. The title echoes the palindromatic theme making reference to Marcel Duchamp's title Anemic Cinema. The music for this work is a development of JS Bach's palindromatic 'Crab' Cannon.