ian andrews - departure
Departure, 2000
16mm found home movie footage, re-shot on video and displayed as 3-channel DVD on plasma screens; directional audio
9:30 mins; colour
Collection: Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Courtesy: the artist
contents: essay | artist's bio | artist's statement
Throughout the history of filmmaking, artists have been interested in ways of using the surface of film as a skin upon which to work: to etch into, scratch or disfigure the image, or to strip back layers through chemicals or processing techniques. In recent decades, video artists have also investigated electronic tools that allow the manipulation of the superficial appearance of the image. In Departure, Australian artist Ian Andrews uses a combination of analogue and digital techniques to evoke the decaying process that occurs to a film or photographic image over time, and in doing so, he has created an altogether different visual landscape in which layers of images contest and compete against each other.
In Departure, a small strip of found footage film of a man 'departing' loops endlessly back and forth, and as it does so, the repeated actions of the man seem to physically alter the layers of the image through which we watch this action take place. The figure inscribes its presence on the landscape as it crosses and then exits the frame, leaving a ghostly trace of its presence that offers the viewer a new understanding of the relationship between the image and perception.
In his video work, Andrews has explored the proliferation of images that flood contemporary culture leaving echoes and traces on our vision and intelligence. The Forgotten Memory series, of which Departure is a key work, is a meditative step back from this over-saturated world of images. In the three works that compose the series, Andrews allows texture and form to overlay abstract landscapes of frozen time. In Departure, the filmmaker hovers over this looping strip of film like a scientist peering through a microscope, examining this visual world for sense and meaning. The footsteps and subtle physical shifts of this walking man become an enclosed world, without entry or exit, in which the memory and traces of the man's presence in the landscape form their own coherent, autonomous universe. Andrews immerses him in the flickering layers of colour, and decomposed and fractured film grain and video pixels, reminding the viewer of the skin that separates them from this haunting, shimmering image. Yet the very presence of these layers invites us to try and peel them back, to reach closer to this ghostly energetic presence and allow the surface of the image to make contact with the surface of our senses, intellect and emotions.
1961-Born, lives and works in Sydney, Australia
Australian artist Ian Andrews has worked prolifically in sound, video and film since the early 80s. While concurrently releasing projects through musical collective Clan Analogue, Andrews has created a vast body of work that combines irreverent 'culture-jamming' and agit-prop approaches with intelligent explorations of media saturation in contemporary culture. His works, which range from video and 16mm film to net.art and interactive works, have screened internationally at festivals and exhibitions including: Cybersonica, London; Spoleto Fringe Festival, Italy; and Perspecta 1993 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
A graduate of the BA (Communications) degree at the University of Technology, Sydney, Andrews has also published a number of essays in journals such as NMA (New Music Articles) and Essays in Sound. In June 2001, the Sydney Film Festival featured a retrospective of his work from 1983 to 2001. As well as performing as a VJ (video jockey), continuing to release his original musical compositions, and authoring Flash interactive works for the web, Andrews currently teaches video technology and interactive media at Metro Screen in Sydney.
Website links
Ian Andrews' website
http://radioscopia.org/
Soundtoys
http://www.soundtoys.net/a/newwork/ianandrews
Departure is the third and final piece of my Forgotten Memories Series. The three pieces represent the results of a process in which a collection of found film - including 1950s home movie footage, out-takes of an industrial film, out-takes from some of my own films, and some hand-painted and scratched film - were all spliced into short loops, re-filmed and superimposed over each other.
After the footage was made into loops of various lengths the images were re-shot with a video camera. They were then processed with different devices and combined by a process known as non-additive mixing. Some of the loops were also processed through a 'Cox Box' colour synthesiser, and, in some instances, were combined with video noise and computer animation. This process resulted in several hours of material from which the three pieces were selected.
The idea was to work fast, without the hindrance of too many options, and with the instantaneous hands-on approach that real-time processing affords. I also wanted to allow some degree of randomness to enter the process (the results of which were to be final and not open to correction), and to capture the peculiarities of older analogue technologies.
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