England 2013: Video Art

Last year I spent a semester studying in the School of Creative Arts at University of Hertfordshire in England. During that time, I was given the opportunity to experiment with a host of different fine art techniques, including video art. I took a class called Working in Collaboration with the main goal of creating a piece of art through a collaborative process. Video became the main focus of the class, though a range of options for collaboration were possible.

We studied contemporary many video artists – Marina Abramovic, Bruce Nauman, and Bill Viola, among many others. I became excited by the notion of video art despite frustrations with its message. I struggled with the notion of a video with no clear narrative, beginning, end, or purpose. I slowly understood that not all videos required cinematic elements to convey a strong message. Video art is often installation based and frequently features the artist as a main or secondary character. With much research and thought, an idea began to form.

I collaborated with a close friend and artist from North Carolina, Kelsey Mattachione who was also visiting as a study abroad student for the semester. We had often discussed the out-of-body feeling we had living in England, as if we were observers of a society to which we did not belong. This became a common theme in discussions we had about the video we would produce. We talked about the differences between visiting and living abroad – our conversations lasted hours.

Our video is a narrative commentary on being a stranger in the place you live. The video employs rain as a metaphor for the constant reminder of being an outsider. The video features Kelsey and I as the featured characters, and the scenes were filmed around the city we lived in called Hatfield, England. The narrative is subtle but present, beginning with a quieter sadness and progressing towards moments of enlightenment that paralleled our own development while living in England. The music is Metamorphosis by Philip Glass, a prominent pianist from the USA.