• time and again, 2005
  • time and again, 2005
  • time and again, 2005
  • time and again, 2005
  • time and again, 2005
  • time and again, 2007
  • time and again, 2007
  • time and again, 2007

time and again, 2005

High resolution - 2007

projection - edition of 5

monitor and cabinet - edition of 5

time and again is a yearlong time-lapse video composed of still images shot from a fixed vantage point. Working within a predetermined process, I photographed the same scene every half hour for a period of one year, starting January 1st, 2004 and finishing on December 31, 2004.  The scene is looking down into a garden and an adjacent yard. Over the course of the 2 hour 16 minute video one witnesses both small incidental changes of isolated localized movement – the sudden appearance and disappearance of a squirrel, or branches succumbing to the weight of rain – and major changes such as the destruction and reconstruction of a garage. Randomness meets order while nature and culture mix.  

The key concerns in this work are time and duration. In the genre of landscape photography/painting one observes the passage of time through the four seasons as a subtle meditation on temporality – a still life in motion. In contrast to this subtlety is the mechanical movement of one image following the other, processed with only a slight video transition, to create a staccato movement like a clock ticking. The decision to have the movement more pronounced than fluid and filmic is a nod to early Eadweard Muybridge motion studies – freezing and releasing time.

Conceptually many artists have dealt with similar concerns – some I knew of before I made the piece (like Andy Warhol’s Empire) and others I learned of later when I was considering the finished work. I like the idea of there being a lineage of people looking at landscape and the environment and dealing with natural/ organic along with technical/mechanical processes. In time and again, the window is a framing device and all other details of the window frame are masked out. (The use of the window as a framing device is also used by Michael Snow, amongst others.)

To examine the passage of time is nostalgic – even melancholic – looking back. When I made the piece I started to think of a self-referential element and decided to place the camera now in the position of the birdhouse and indeed “look back” at the house. The birdhouse, which had been observed for over a year, was now the observer. I installed the time-lapsevideo of the comings and going in the house itself inside the birdhouse to correlate with the idea of inside looking out. This piece is entitled re: view.

Most people know me as a kinetic sculptor and are curious about the shift to video, but time and again is a study in movement. Although the subject I chose is in many ways quite mundane and “un/monumental” the piece/portrait is very intimate and personal. It reveals something about me – thatI have always been a window gazer.

Exhibition History

2014   relay. Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough, Ontario. Curated by Ann MacDonald (cabinet).
2011   STOP. LOOK. LISTEN. Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Ontario (cabinet).
2009   TIAF. Toronto, Ontario. Represented by Olga Korper Gallery. (cabinet).
2007   Outlook Express(ed). Gairloch Gardens, Oakville, Ontario. Curated by Marnie Fleming (projection).
2007   Beyond In Western New York. Albright Knox Gallery, Bufffalo, New York (projection).
2005   time after time. Galerie Art Mûr, Montréal, Québec (projection).
2005   green eyes. Dyan Marie Projects, Toronto, Ontario (cabinet).
2005   A Group of Seven. A contemporary look at the Canadian landscape. Canadian Embassy, Washington, D.C. (projection).
2004   A Group of Seven. A contemporary look at the Canadian Landscape. Galerie Art Mûr, Montréal, Québec (projection).