 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
The piece showing at Fieldgate Gallery is a single screen part of an intended four-screen
installation showing the same urban landscape scene in four different seasons, each for
an 8-hour recorded timeframe. It is a single unedited selection from dozens of recordings
of the same scene throughout one year.
It is accepted that we have to “suspend disbelief” to enjoy most theatrical productions.
Similarly, we “suspend our own flow of time” to enjoy most conventional films or TV
programs. Even many moving image works shown in art contexts require this
unacknowledged agreement by the audience to submit to the duration of time needed to
view the piece.
Thames Reflections uses digital moving image technology to present a work with perhaps
more affinity to traditionally static artworks such as paintings or photographs than most
other moving image experiences. With static works the viewer remains active in the time
taken to experience the work rather than being dictated to by the maker. And the same is
true here – but there is also movement. Time is present in the piece, but it is natural time,
not edited time. There is stillness and movement.
Following in a very long tradition of western landscape art, it extends the observation or
depiction of a landscape to include the passage of time. And that reveals the actual
movement of objects within the frame, and of the light, that can only be alluded to in
traditional forms.
-- Peter Donebauer – November 2007
CV for Fieldgate Gallery
The curator and gallery have asked for my CV, but that’s not something I have. . .
I tried Googling it, but got 193,000,000 results and was short of time . . . though it only
took Google 0.08 secs . . .
So I tried a couple of dictionaries and they all talked about “professional history for
prospective employers”. Which I suppose explains why I don’t have one, as I have never
sought an employer. I have led a creative life, with some success if that’s of importance
to you, but under my own steam. I have been an artist all along, sometimes covertly,
taught occasionally, built video synthesisers, run a broadcast production company,
developed properties and raised a family, more often than not in collaboration with others
. . .
My moving image work has become more occasional, with increasingly long gestation
times. Ironically it really comes out of stillness, or perhaps centredness is a better word.
The act of creation helps that process internally and the result, hopefully, shares
something of that spaciousness with others . . .
I guess my website has something CV-ish about it, at least there’s some history there,
though I’m not sure I would call it professional, and prospective employers definitely
needn’t bother . . .
