‘The Hut (5/4)’ is a parallax video projection in 21:9 CinemaScope. The technique embodies the idea of ‘Elastic Photography’, photomedia imbued will the illusion of depth.

‘The Hut’ is set in a ‘nowherescape’, a liminal hinterland of collapsible time that is at once bittersweet, life-affirming and deadly. This photo-cinematic project features unique applications of techniques that intimate depth in photography utilising programming that ensure no scenes repeat in the same order providing an exclusive experience for every visitor, putting time beyond duration.

The ∞ Infinity version plays randomly generated sequences of all 24 scenes and soundscapes in never-ending unique permutations so that no two experiences of the work are ever the same.

The recent collision of photography and cinema in the new space of digital technology creates a unique portal through which to experience time, one that is not merely a conflation of the two mediums but is instead a new way to experience the world. Since its invention many writers have written on the peculiar nature of photographic temporality. I contend that now it is the revelation of time through the space that sits between photography and its fast-moving cousin – cinema – that allows us to reimagine the ever-present past. This “new time” sits between the stilled film and the filmic still, reality and illusion, analogue and digital. A z-space of time.

Recently Belgian photomedia artist David Claerbout (1969-) and Estonian film director Martii Helde (1987-) have independently blurred the lines of photography and film by reshaping moments in time, de-narrativising duration into a form of ‘sense memory’ of the kind found in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. Drawing on the work of Deleuze, Agamben, Neitzsche, Baudrillard, and others I will explore various instances of these new ‘photo-filmic spaces’, and discuss their implications for creative agency within contemporary capitalism.

The Hut explores the indexical lamination of memory, history, narrative and reality afforded by photography imbued with the illusion of spatial dimensionality. My research investigates the notion that far from freezing a ‘slice of time’ photography reanimates perception through sensation rendering duration flexible and elastic.

Using the liminal landscape of South Australia as time’s stage, I contend that time is ‘collapsible’, constantly unfolding and repeating. In embracing this temporal flow I submit that photomedia becomes our most compelling connection to time itself, as lived experience. It is this connection that can act as an ethical agent of change for the betterment of the landscape in which we live.

This project includes work created in South Australia, the ACT, the United States and the Outer Hebrides and Shetland Islands of Scotland. It includes artefacts photographed in the Adelaide Civic Collection, The South Australian Museum and the National Museum of Australia.

Official selection 36th Asolo Art Film Festival