Encountering In Motion: Train Journey Introductory Project Crit

I hung the screen in the corridor of the studio between two of the rooms, in order to gain the full effect of the installation in passing, as I believe the screen should be viewed whilst in motion. A projector was then positioned in one of the adjacent rooms, screening the accelerated train journey film on to the screen. This projection was visible on both sides of the plastic screen and also created some interesting projected forms onto the adjacent wall and ceiling of the opposing room.

The following text was attached all the way around the lower frame of the installation to encourage movement around the form:

Encountering in motion……….

Journeying from one destination to another we immerse ourselves in a continuous movement of shifting orientations and crossed viewpoints, where peripheral vision envelopes us in the world around us whilst focused vision confronts us to the world. In perceiving space in flux the viewer is temporarily positioned in motion between a series of scenes, where the invisible becomes visible and the present slides into a memory that we have engaged with only in passing. We transport ourselves out of one moment into another, onwards and onwards.

Whilst enveloped on a train journey, although moving, we feel almost motionless, as fixed sites are viewed rushing by besides us, and those places become visualized as unfixed. This is then confused when another moving train comes into view, and we begin to make comparisons and question which is moving, which is stationary and which is going faster.

When advancing along the static fixed screen, the twists of the plane gradually open up and reveal, then steadily shy away from each other masking the adjacent space. Although fixed, the screen’s form is dynamic and moving to the eye.

The viewers’ journey is independent of the next, each has a conscious interplay with the work, animated by the current activities of the room on passing and the time frame of the film at that moment, tracing individual experience and continually revealing into the unknown.

This installation juxtaposes these confusing contrasting moments where movement and stillness become intertwined and questionable.

Projections on opposing wall created by the installation: