Video Palimpsest

Palimpsest
–noun
a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.
Origin:
1655–65; <>

1. A manuscript, typically of papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible.
2. An object, place, or area that reflects its history: "Spaniards in the sixteenth century . . . saw an ocean moving south . . . through a palimpsest of bayous and distributary streams in forested paludal basins" (John McPhee).

My studio practice this semester has been largely based around the idea of creating a 'video palimpsest'. I have under-taken a variety of experiements to do this.

First I tested the idea on still images, using a fully manual Holga camera I took a 120 colour film with multiple exposures and various coloured flashes.

I have also been making a few short video works (approx 1:30). In these I have experiemented with in camera editing, filming a shot for the full duration of the video first, then rewinding back and re-recording over the top. This has had some interesting results. The sound seemed to layer up and become distorted and some of the transitions have bright red flashes in between. This technique was most successful in my short video 'Bowl-a-rama''.

Another technique I have incorparated is layering up the imagery in Adobe After effects to create moving multiple exposures. The aesthetic of this however was not particularly successful, and will not be something I explore further next semester.

Inspired by the success of the layered sound, my latest video work ' Motivation and Moral are at an all time Low' shot in a unused industrial woolshed, is a single channel video with score created from multi-layered sounds recorded on location. The dominant noise being a train slowly approaching and finally passing, fading into the distance. This is designed to build and distort in the middle, and fad on either side inorder to create a seamless loop.

My final experiment which has not yet been fully resolved is the incorporation of a data projector into the layering process. The idea was to project some recorded footage of the location back on to the location, using two cameras and tapes I would continually film the projection and it's surrounds, then feed that back through the projector. Repeating the process over an over, aiming to degrade the moving imagery into abstracted light forms.
I have not yet mastered this process, but I hope to have a work created this way resolved in the following month.