Road Trip: Iceland Residency
Road Trip
2018
Made for the Iceland Immersion
show at Light Grey Art Lab
(Best viewed with headphones)
My fear of losing the memory of a thing is what drives me to document. This residency taught me to stop worrying about what memories I will lose. Instead it made me realize that the function of these events and experiences allow me to grow as an individual. This video represents the anxiety and fear I had prior to the residency. When I was drawing, taking photographs, and collecting video of my various adventures with my group, I was afraid I was losing the personal experience, free of any technology or instrument, yet while experiencing this surreal landscape with my own eyes, I was afraid that the lack of documentation would make me lose the memory that I can allow me to re-live these memories over again at anytime.
Those drawings and photographs however just preserve the representation and not the memory. This video is a about memory, and how over time, that fresh experience of viewing a beautiful place such as Iceland can eventually fade. But rather than feel disappointed, I became fascinated by memory. During the residency, I constantly took video of our travels, this was than broken down through scanning processes that distorted and broke the video down into individual frames. After months of reinterpreting the footage, I created a stop-motion animation that attempts to recreate that feeling of slowly losing the memory of an experience. These landscapes are distorted, abstracted and the video mimics old damaged film. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but the structure of that memory is still present.
Through this residency, I discovered that the overall experience I had, with a wonderful group of amazing artists and guides, is what made each adventure in this ancient land well worth it.