video installation | 2012

Four looping, synchronized screens are projected onto a raised box in the centre of the gallery.

Now and Again began as a seasonal landscape project called a Box of Hours, which would act like a clock or calendar.  Twelve different sites at different months in the year would be filmed from four ‘sides’ towards a common centre and projected onto a box, so that the spectator, could walk around the box and see features of the landscape from different points of view – in the foreground on one face and in the distance on the opposite face. The box would seem to contain the landscape.

In the Southampton version a site was chosen – which is the subject of many paintings in the Southampton collection – of Westgate, part of the Medieval city wall. We filmed through the archway and across a public square. The fixed still features of the image dominate any movement through the space. The performers were local people, residents of the square and staff at Southampton City Art Gallery. It seemed at first that someone moving through the space on screen is seen from four directions, but then there is a disturbing sense of doubling – or in this case quadrupling. The action was subtly different, shadows are different; light, wind and sky are different. The action has been repeated four times and filmed on separate occasions.

Now and Again was partially funded by The Friends of Southampton’s Museums, Archives and Gallery.  Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council, England.

David Gopsil, camera, assisted by Jordan Maloy; Graeme Miller, sound design. Assisted by Steve Wald. Programmed by Tim Craven. Produced by Nicky Childs, Artsadmin.

Performers: Sarah Filmer (& dog), Gary ‘Not the Artist’, Gary Stevens, Claudia Friend, Portia Barrow, Louise Hansen, Jane Keane, Michelle, Sam & Dan Combon,  Andrew Ball, Stuart Rodda, Adam Ogden-Swift, Jessica Whitfield, Stephanie Bull and Zoe Cohen- Bull.