Ex Nihilo
Video Installation for Anne Harkin Petersen
Ex Nihilo video piece
Commissioned to produce a video piece to go with the paintings of Anne Harkin Petersen. Using her original paintings the brief was to create an ethereal place that would be projected onto a wall at the exhibition alongside her paintings. It was to be dark as if in a void and showing only glimpses into this world as we travel through it.
I found it an exciting challenge, but one I was capable of achieving, especially after talking with the artist and seeing the original images. I had a sense of what needed to be done, but it would take some trial and error to get to the final product.
The first task was to film the art work. It was decided to pan over the different piece in close-up capturing details that we could later edit together into one continuous piece. Then in post-production we could blend them together and use masks to reveal and hide certain parts of the work as desired.
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Don't forget to un-mute video to hear sound
Original Art Work by Anne Harkin Petersen
Attracting Activity
Oil on Canvas | 174cm x 96cm | 2015 |
Discover the Link
Oil on Paper | 176cm x 56cm | 2015 |
The Observer and the Observed
Oil on Card | 41.5cm x 25cm | 2013 |
Dervish Rapture
Oil on Canvas | 174cm x 96cm | 2015 |
One of the initial ideas from Anne Harkin-Petersen was to work with silver spheres. We hung them inside a mirrored box we constructed with a hole for the camera to poke through in order to film. Although this did achieve an interesting effect, it wasn't the desired outcome we were looking for. Due to the constraints of filming from one fixed point we were unable to create a sense of floating through emptiness, although it did inform us of what we were trying to achieve. In the end we decided to go with a digital solution by creating the spheres in post-production using Adobes After Effects. It turned out we had much better control over the spheres - when they appeared, the speed at which they travelled and even how bright they would be.
Spheres Test Film
Working with Anne was a very rewarding experience which at times pushed my abilities in reaching the goal, but isn't one of the reasons to work on projects such is this to find new ways of seeing and how to make that vision come through, especially when working collaboratively with another artist.
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