Working a box, in a cardboard box . . .
Unlike a physical art installation where viewers can walk around it and experience it, this video is taken from a static point just watching the boxes hanging in the air to represent the fact that my colleagues and I are trapped in our virtual boxes working together but always apart. The installation has been coupled with some of the ambient sounds of a day working at home.
Brief
A) ‘Mirror’
Choose a community that you’re already a part of. It could be your child’s nursery or your regular gym class, but it should be something that takes up a substantial amount of your interest and time.
Create a photographic response to how this group informs who you are as a person.
- What aspects of this group or community reflect on you?
- What do you share?
- How does it function as a mirror reflection of who you are?
Introduction
I am already a part of my work community. Over the past year, the community has changed beyond all recognition! This installation is a representation of how we are all working at home, trapped in our monitor screens, aimlessly floating around in the airwaves.
To create this series, I made ‘print screen’ images of my colleagues during virtual meetings and conversations. The very nature of taking screen shots, means you can’t wait for the right pose or facial expression, therefore, this gives a more authentic portrait. My colleagues were unaware that I was doing this to improve the authenticity.
In order to enhance the idea of us all being separate but together in the same virtual space, I have placed the images inside their own little monitor-shaped boxes. I could have done this in photoshop, but I actually wanted to physically place us in the boxes and have photographed them all individually.
Finally; I wanted to depict all of us trapped in our boxes, floating around, therefore decided to create an installation, much like a mobile. My tutor suggested not being too literal about the meaning, but I have considered all of the elements of the installation, including the shape of the hanger and the deliberate way it is held together with masking tape.
Taking the idea from my first version of Assignment 3, I have added some of the sounds and ambient noise from working at home to the video to create the final installation video.
Reflection
This concept was the first idea I had for this assignment, but I couldn’t work out how to create a series of images. Having discussed this with my tutor and showed him the boxes I had already bought. He suggested that the individual images of the people in the boxes could be the series, with the installation being the presentation method.
I am so glad that I carried this forward and made this series, as I feel much more fulfilled by it than I did with the slideshow in Version 1. I have decided to keep both as it demonstrates my progression and how one brief could lead to multiple responses.
I really enjoyed making the installation. However, unlike hanging it in a gallery and letting people view it from all sides, I had to make a decision on how to present it in video form. I could have projected some images on the wall, but actually felt that the boxes just hanging in the blank space, better portrayed the concept. Filming from a static position mimics the reality that we are viewing each other from the same point every day. I have added some of the ambient sounds that happen during a typical working day at home.
