Floodland: study no.1 - Visible Measures

Background & Theory:

This site-specific video-performance was created on the occasion of a fieldwork day (in May 2009) initiated by Dr. Jason Kirby (Principal Lecturer in Physical Geography, Liverpool John Moores University). The artist accompanied Dr. Kirby and his postgraduate students who were conducting paleo-environmental 'mud core' research on location at Oglet shore salt marsh on the banks of the Mersey Estuary. Their research facilitates an ongoing study of sea level change on the Mersey Estuary.

As a parallel, complimentary activity to the scientists' work on-site, the artist set out to explore and record his own experience instinctive response to the immediate environment: he walked from Oglet shore (Dungeon Banks) to Hale Head and back. The basis of this work or 'study' is his interest in sea level rise as a result of environmental and climatic change.

Rigorous composition is central to the vocabulary of the video images. The horizontal features (i.e. horizon and painted mud lines) echo both the geological strata and the tide-worn patterns of the sandstone rock on this coastline. Equally, the vertical features (i.e. human body, wooden tide posts and lighthouse) also reflect an interest in objective measuring and locating cartographic markers in real space.

The picturesque/romantic spirit of landscape within this work (physical and emotional experience and poetry) is counter-balanced in tension with a more scientific/rational quest to understand the environment (cartography and geographical/climatic theory).


Philosophy & Intention:

We measure nature. We read nature's marks. As the tide turns, what measures are we taking? What marks have we made? The artist explores his instinctive response to specific places and seeks to engage with the ecological and geological histories of where land meets the sea: embodying human time, earth time, lunar time. Through physical interaction and the making of ephemeral marks, he seeks a synthesis of human action and body with organic matter. This is a corporeal measure, investigating a spirit of connectedness through environmental change.

www.james-brady.blogspot.com

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• ecology
• environment
• art
• video art
• performance art
• landscape
• sound art
• coast
• sea
• flooding
• climate change
• global warming
• saltmarsh
• science
• geography
• geology
• maps
• cartography
• painting
• structuralist film