1996
super 8
black & white
40 minutes
silent
1996 original notes:
book of seconds was started on september 2, 1995 and was conceived as a year long project. every day i shot ten seconds of film. the images were limited to shadows or light. when the project was completed (september 2, 1996), there were approximately 3,650 seconds (or one hour) of footage, and conceivably a sequence for every day of the year. the black sequences are ten seconds of nothing for the days in which i was unable to film, due to lack of time, weather, etc. the ten second length of each sequence was calculated personally, rather than with a watch, hence the slightly different length of each sequence.
the work deals with the creation of art as an everyday practice. i am interested in bringing about questions relating to the relationship of making art to other activities such as diary, prayer, ritual, work, documentation, etc. what you are seeing is an unedited actual recording of ten seconds of my visual life for every day of a year. is this process merely a blind activity as basic as brushing my teeth or eating? or is it something more?
the process of creating this work, as well as the resulting footage, is an exploration of the idea that beauty, or inspiration, is not determined by location, but by vision (i.e. attention). in ‘letters to a young poet’ rilke talks about the artist being inspired by ‘inconsiderable things’ and the fact that an artist should be able to find inspiration anywhere. (to quote madonna – “beauty’s where you find it.”) is this work a document of beauty found?, or does it show only an empty pursuit? is it art because of the dialogue it generates? or simply because it is presented as such?
i am also interested in the process of how film is exposed; and in using the basics of that process, (darkness and light) as the subject matter of the film. the film refers to itself and to the process of its creation. the magic and almost alchemical process of how these images are captured on film exists as both the physical (the actual film), as well as the symbolic (the images captured).
i should also mention that this piece was very much related to the 15th anniversary of my father’s death, and the fact that he was a cameraman for part of his life, suggested i might learn something about him, but using not only a tool similar to the one’s he’d worked with, but the actual camera itself, which was given to me by my parents for my 13th birthday… so beyond the daily thoughts about making art, i was also attempting to come to terms with the loss.