Project Overview

For my final piece I will attempt to reframe and rework a collection of found footage and still photographs into an original abstract narrative. I will be looking at the ways we document our lives in a bid to leave a mark and prove our existence, long after we have passed. This piece will draw inspiration from both Bill Morrison’s Decasia for the moving image section of my work, and Chris Marker’s La Jetee for the photo roman portion of these works.   

Using the themes and characters from the footage I intend to rework these images in order to create a new narrative. This footage will then be projected onto manmade structured and textures – such as brick walls, buildings etc., which intend to reinforce my theme. The footage will then be captured on a variety of formats - old and new, digital and analogue to further manipulate the original footage.

The found footage  

The found footage I will be using has already been sourced from a local charity shop. These are a collection of home movies capturing the lives of an unknown family. This footage was the inspiration for the project, as these images were left behind and discarded, but is still proof that these people existed.

This footage caused me to rethink the ways we use both photographic and film based mediums in the modern world. In the information age we now use both still and moving images as proof of our existence via social networking. The endless archives of photos and videos will carry on long after we exist, to leave something behind, much like the cave paintings of our ancestors.   

  

The Piece will be in three parts

Part 1 - will be the reworking of the found footage, which will be projected, re-filmed and reworked.

Part 2 - will be a photo roman of images that capture how mankind leaves their mark on the physical work. Such as graffiti, buildings and statues etc.

Part 3 - will be a destruction of the collected works in order to reinforce the idea that we are finite. Both us, our legacies, our photos and memories will eventually decay and will one day cease to exist.