Joanna Austin

My research will investigate how and why disorientation is used as a strategy for contemporary video installation. Although primarily practice–based this research offers a theoretical and conceptual framework with which to further understand and progress my own practice. In particular, I intend to look at disorientation as a methodology to provoke irrationality and imagination within a suburban setting. This would aim to provide an antidote to conformity and restriction and promote creativity as a means of freedom for the individual. The research is formed of three parts.

The first part considers the historical precedent of the use of disorientation as a strategy in Surrealist films[1]. Everett makes clear that ‘Surrealists exploit the unreal/reality of film to create a world characterized by uncertainty in which the spectator feels increasingly disorientated.’[2] She points out that an important aspect of Surrealist films are their ‘naturalness’, they ‘do not attempt to portray a fantastic world but a real one in which the fantastic, the merveilleux, is an integral part of the reality.’[3] The techniques used to apply this strategy are discussed with reference to a selection of Surrealist films including Un Chien Andalou and l'Age d'Or by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, Entr'acte by Rene Clair, La Coquille et le Clergyman by Germaine Dulac and Antonin Artaud[4]. The reasons why the surrealists chose this strategy will also be discussed.

Secondly, the strategies of disorientation developed in the previous section will be used to analyse a selection of video installations dated from the past forty years. The additional effects that installing the video in a specific space has on the viewer will also be investigated[5]. These video installations have been chosen to present a wide range of the different techniques that can be used. For example spatial disorientation created by moving the video camera, unexpected violent elements in the video footage itself, recreation of real spaces within which to show the video, and the use of video feedback to include the viewer in the artwork. The video installations will include Descent by Catherine Yass, Ever is Over All by Pipilotti Rist, Extramission 6 (Black Maria) by Lindsay Seers, Kinderzimmer by Gregor Schneider, Negative Crossing by Peter Campus, Present Continuous Past(s) by Dan Graham and Live-Taped Video Corridor by Bruce Naumann.

In order to develop the ideas and strategies set out in the analysis above, it is necessary to undertake a range of visual experiments to investigate aspects of disorientation when a video camera is used within a visual arts practice. The work will be made using a cyclical visual process rather than creating the work according to a pre-conceived narrative structure. This process takes the form of shooting footage, editing, projecting the video into a space and then repeating these steps until the video installation is deemed ready to be shown. The sites used for the installations will be both site specific suburban locations and gallery spaces. This combination allows the work to be seen both by the suburban audience that it is intended for but also to show that it forms part of a critical visual arts practice.

[1] Hammond P., 'Available Light', Hammond P. ed., introd. and tr., The Shadow and it's Shadow: Surrealist Writings on the Cinema, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2000, pp.1-33.
[2] Everett W., 'Screen as Threshold: the Disorienting Topographies of Surrealist Film', Screen, vol. 39, no. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 141-152.
[3] Ibid.
[4] The discussion will include Kuenzli R., Dada and Surrealist Films, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1996 and Lackey S., Psychological modernity and the Filmic Project of the Surrealists 1918-1930, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Manchester, 2004.
[5] The discussion will include Meigh-Andrews C., A History of Video Art, Oxford; Berg, 2006, Park Y. S., Defining Video Space Art within Video Installations in the Context of Spaces and Spectators, Ph.D. Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2005 and Morse M., 'Video Installation Art: the Body, the Image and the Space-in-Between' in Hall D., and Fifer S.-J., eds., Illuminating Video, New York: Aperture, 1990, pp. 150-169.