John Aäsp

Abstract

My recent video work employs a chronophotographic template to play on the idea of extracting knowledge from a fragmented visual sequence. Rather than freezing separate frames as instances of motion (as seen in a Muybridge sequence), motion is left within the sequence—looping continuously to create a paradox of stasis and dynamism. Using found footage from an older film era or clips from modern television, sequences are recaptured and reorganized to create a media-hybridized moment standing in a new temporal flow.

Influenced by the philosophy of Henri Bergson, this work explores a gray area between cinema and photography, motion and stillness, linearity and repetition. A shift in spectatorship occurs in between the conventions of cinema and photography that reveals a dense and challenging area of visual art. My work is about the gesture of reviewing an already recorded world—one that exists as a living body or historical archive of imagery that communicates and informs contemporary visual culture.

Though images are appropriated from cinema and television, the final pieces are not meant to be received as either. A more thoughtful apprehension of moving imagery within the context of photography can emerge if temporal expectations are set aside, and more careful articulation will help elucidate moving image work in the post-photographic age—not by dancing on photography's grave—but as a reconstructive practice addressing a larger, living body of camera/screen-based imaging.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Video art--Technique; Video art--Themes, motives; Chronophotography--Technique; Chronophotography--Themes, motives; Photography, Artistic--Technique; Photography, Artistic--Themes, motives

Publication Date

12-7-2006

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Imaging Arts (MFA)

Advisor

Therese Mulligan

Advisor/Committee Member

Timothy Engström

Advisor/Committee Member

Elliott Rubenstein

Comments

N6494.V53 .A27 2006

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

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