Rebecca Morrison Artspace: Video Quartet

Video Quartet from Rebecca Morrison on Vimeo.

suite of four short videos | single channel, color, sound | total runtime: 16:32

Parades in A Minor (at 00:08)
Once In A Lullaby (at 03:49)
Preservation Song (at 08:15)
Nocturne For The Fall (at 12:08)

These videos were made at public gatherings: parades, community celebrations, fairs, festivals, concerts, and theme parks. Here, the camera affords me the opportunity to look closely at the dynamics of human interaction within the context of the social ritual. I am interested in the roles we play as both performers and spectators in the public sphere. At these events, community and family bonding often intersect with the absurd trappings of consumer culture, but ultimately our collective desire to gather is affirmed. I explore moments that reveal the individual within the framework of the crowd, and also look to capture a contemporary image of the American family, including both traditional family units and "family" considered non-literally, as a group of people who share a common home, interest, or stage in life.

The connotations of public social gatherings are continuously shifting as more and more of our human interplay takes place in a virtual, globalized space. Still, we gather. We assemble in public squares to witness the lighting of Christmas trees, lift our heads together to see the moon intersect with the sun, and march like musical notes in a lined measure down small town and big city streets on national holidays. Increasingly, we watch through the screens of our digital devices, compulsively preserving these moments in pixels.

In this suite of vignettes, video’s time-based nature allows for an expanded gaze that aims to scrutinize without a calculated criticality. Here, the collaging of visual clips reveals connections among these varied events. Music, mainly gathered at live performances of amateur musicians, becomes a way to establish structure and tone. The editing process gives me the space to search for poetic resonance in the records of these gatherings, and a chance to discover irony, mystery, humor, and rhythm.

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