Ecstatic Time
2015-16
Series of gifs and videos
This series, shot during an artist residency at Alice Yard in Port-of-Spain, responds to a sense of place through the mediums of slow-motion videography and animated photography. Expanding on filmmaker Hollis Frampton’s notion of “ecstatic time,” the project presents a set of short, looping videos and animated GIFs that document a series of performative gestures in the post-colonial environment of modern-day urban Trinidad. Performed by family members, friends, acquaintances, and local dancers, these brief gestures (some staged, some spontaneous) portray a sense of frustration, futility, and slowness in a local, cultural context. During interactions with the natural and built environments of Trinidad, these characters defy gravity, hide in plain sight, push forward, retreat, and repeat. Using small digital files, short SD video, GIFs, and stereoscopic colour film, the works in Ecstatic Time elude the contemporary desires for high-definition, and instead present slow motion, low-frame rate, or low definition looping videos and animated GIFs, also echoing contemporary media culture such as Vine, Giphy, Tumblr etc.
