AROUND THE SUN
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AROUND THE SUN, 2009-2011 is a video / sound installation consisting of three seamlessly looping videos and an 18 speaker system that creates a continuously evolving soundscape. The above video shows the work as a projected installation.
Links to the individual videos:
Video 1: NEWS, WEATHER & SPORTS
AROUND THE SUN, a trilogy
Introduction
“Around The Sun” is an immersive video / sound experience that explores some of the varying and often conflicting concepts and perceptions of “time.”
The source footage for the project was obsessively filmed throughout an entire year in all weather conditions. The process of gathering of the source footage is conceptually inseparable from the art work itself. In the editing part of the process, meticulous and innovative techniques has made for a surreal (real-time, time-lapse) visual experience that becomes even more disconcerting with when combined with the complex soundscape.
This project was more than 3 years in the making and involved collaborations with virtuoso musicians and cutting edge audio engineers. Dan Hudson’s video projects have won multiple international awards.
Abstract
“Time” delineates the essence as well the parameters of our existence. Strangely though, there is little understanding of what time actually is, or if it even exists outside of our minds. In everyday life, time flies, crawls, and changes according to our actions and emotions. But time can also be measured as a steady flow by using re-occurring astrological events. For example, we have come to know one rotation of the earth as a day; the moon orbiting the earth as a month; and the earth going around the sun as a year. In the end, we only get so many trips around the sun. This art project is a shrine to one such journey.
The Installation
Three year-long time-lapse videos with an 18 speaker surround sound system are installed in a gallery space. Each video is filmed in a different location:
1. A public park (NEWS, WEATHER & SPORTS)
2. The wilderness (RIVER)
3. An outdoor cafe (TIME TRAVELLER)
The frame of reference in each video remains fixed like a photograph. Unlike a photograph, however, the landscape continuously transforms as the seasons change and the years go by. An audio soundscape creates a counterpoint to the zen-like beauty of the visual imagery.
Montages of found audio and field recordings together with original music generate a din of sound that fills the gallery space. The initial effect of the soundscape is that of chaotic ambient noise: people talking, people laughing, newscasts, sports commentary, science programs, urban sounds and music all mashed together. It is only by moving through the space of this installation that associations can be made between the voices, the music, and the images.
The viewer is suspended between the altered timescale conveyed by the artwork and the spatial, moment-to-moment experience of the work itself. The experience of the installation operates on the levels that separate the subjective world inside our heads and objective reality. It is a contemplative shrine to the idea of existence.
NEWS, WEATHER & SPORTS RIVER TIME TRAVELLER
The above image shows the works presented in framed LED monitors. Each video is 48x70 inches. This style of installation works in normal gallery lighting conditions and is meant to reference historic landscape painting.
Links to the individual videos