It seems an age ago that I finished Year Zero at Norwich University Of The Arts (NUA). A year of challenges, fun, contextualisation, new faces, new friends and new experiences. And I loved every minute of it, even the weekly tasks, critical writing and submission deadlines.
Before I even started back at NUA there was a summer task to complete. 'Looks Familiar?' The brief asked for us to search for the unexpected in places that are familiar to us. Whether this was our bedroom at home, garden, a favourite place, possessions, bags, old haunts and hiding places, drawers, pockets in old clothes. Anywhere that could lead to an interesting discovery. With regards the actual method of recording these discoveries that was left up to the individual.
I started by looking at places I can't normally see, ie 6 feet above my height, at ground level using a GoPro to film these. Although they revealed images and footage I didn't normally see they didn't actually produce anything that interesting. So I then started to look at points of view of my body I don't normally see. Initially I filmed myself riding my bike but only focussing on my feet. However I didn't feel this as 'strange' enough. It was only when I took my GoPro to the coast and filmed myself walking towards the camera did things become more interesting.
This footage I found quite mesmerising, the rhythm of the steps, the unfamiliar angle and view, made even more unfamiliar by being underwater and I kept the sound as I felt this adding to the experience. The repeated steps and cropped image focussed on the planting of the feet, the stretching of the toes, ligaments and muscles as the body worked to make the steps in the moving water.
I also looked to film other angles as I rode my bike along Marriotts Way, a cycle route that goes from Norwich to Reepham and then onto Aylsham. I found by pointing the GoPro at the trees I could film an angle I don't normally see. An ever changing canopy of branches reaching out, touching but respectful of each other.
As with the footage of the walking underwater this also has a mesmerising quality. The flow, the changes and the every day seen from a different angle.
Tacita Dean studied one of the largest and oldest oaks in the country. The piece is a black and white photograph massively enlarged and printed on four overlapping sections of fibre-based paper. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dean-majesty-t12805
Another artist who studied various trees in a variety of locations was Marie-Louise Von Motesiczky. (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/archive/items/tga-20129-6-7-29-14/von-motesiczky-photograph-of-regents-canal). Von Motesczky also created images from trees studied in Majorca, Turkey and Switzerland amongst other places. Taking the every day and producing beautiful images.
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