White Triangle Mews (2007)

Digital Video, 4m 42s

A film of a journey, on foot and at night, up an unidentified street to a late opening off licence, into the shop to the alcohol section back out of the shop and back to the starting point. The camera is held on top of a large piece of wood, painted white, causing a white triangle to appear at the bottom of the shot. The white triangle either obscures or completes the shot. Because of the painted surface of the wood it reacts to the environment, glowing yellow under street lights and glowing brilliant white under the shop lights, becoming a part of its surroundings. However its hard edged, cumbersome presence also prevents the camera, and the thus the viewer from interacting in a conventional way with the imagery/environment.

The environment must be negotiated in relation to the triangle and vice versa the environment is viewed in relation to the triangle. It separates the viewer from the imagery, accentuating and calling to attention the invisible boundary between the viewer and the imagery, that is the screen. But as the triangle points into the centre of the imagery it pulls the viewer into the shot. Thus the triangle separates and reinforces the viewer’s exteriority to the scenes and people presented in the film and simultaneously draws them into the environment, into the defined space. The experience of viewing becomes embodied.