14 / December
2011
Captured through a plastic bag
The video work in this piece has been captured through a plastic bag. This was the artists intention not knowing exactly what the outcome would be, I feel a sense of risk that has been taken. A question surfaces, are we taking risks simply by seeing things differently?
I then realize, we do have the power to do this, with almost anything in our lives. But why do we seldom take advantage of that? We do find the cameras ability to capture and find its way out of the small cracks in the bag. At first this deceives me, I almost loose my patience, but then no. What we see through the bag are fragments of familiar everyday possibilities, things that we know, too well along side abstractions created by the movement of the camera inside the bag. The way that we see through the bag interests me. I can see the world as I think I perceive it through cracks and holes that may or may not have been created by the artist, either way, we discover new forms to see the world through. They limit our sight, but yet we know what we are seeing, or do we?
The forms are not completely geometric or organic, but somewhere in between. This creates a strange visual harmony. The fact that the interior of the bag is white, plays a major role in distinguishing visual contrasts and finding variations in value.
This helps my eye stay focused through the forms. The metaphor for this is even when we see what we think that we see, we are still not seeing things as they really are, we can never quite focus on one thing, even though we can convince ourselves otherwise.
Ryan Seslow
I then realize, we do have the power to do this, with almost anything in our lives. But why do we seldom take advantage of that? We do find the cameras ability to capture and find its way out of the small cracks in the bag. At first this deceives me, I almost loose my patience, but then no. What we see through the bag are fragments of familiar everyday possibilities, things that we know, too well along side abstractions created by the movement of the camera inside the bag. The way that we see through the bag interests me. I can see the world as I think I perceive it through cracks and holes that may or may not have been created by the artist, either way, we discover new forms to see the world through. They limit our sight, but yet we know what we are seeing, or do we?
The forms are not completely geometric or organic, but somewhere in between. This creates a strange visual harmony. The fact that the interior of the bag is white, plays a major role in distinguishing visual contrasts and finding variations in value.
This helps my eye stay focused through the forms. The metaphor for this is even when we see what we think that we see, we are still not seeing things as they really are, we can never quite focus on one thing, even though we can convince ourselves otherwise.
Ryan Seslow