left:
clip from, “ARE YOU ?,” which explores interruptions of idealized place, either physical location or emotional place. Place, for me, is the setting of every moment I want to remember. This video is composed of shots that I would consider offcuts with interruptions of moments such as a crowded composition of a designated scenic lookout, or audio of crickets and cicadas at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon interrupted by the starting of a car.
"I think back to that moment when the Portals of the Past framed not a mansion, not a garden, but a whole smoldering terrain, more tragic but also more wide open than before or after, a long pause between two phases, as ruins often are."
- Rebecca Solnit, Storming the Gates of Paradise, Landscapes for Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007) p. 368.
Our exposure to so much information on a daily basis creates breaks in continuous thoughts similar to a building obstructing a view of a simple horizon. My paintings and films are inspired by the belief in therapeutic effects of viewing distant forms in the landscape. I use film and video as a multiplier and quick viewer of minutely varied compositions. This process simulates changing speeds at which one moves through physical and electronic environments. Exploring landscape in this manner allows me to question how it affects psychology, decisions and, more specifically, determining what of our personal, emotional and informational lives one preserves versus invalidates.
Kim Miskowicz