Where Am I
This film is linked with the work 'I'm Not There'. Together, these films aim to reflect on how, as an artist, I have been spatially related to this research project.
With the film Where Am I the intention was to make a cartographic representation of an important location: the researcher’s full-time working place. Seeming at first glance descriptive, neutral and without a discernible narrative, this film relates to this research by establishing a parallel between the place where it was filmed – the Asprela university campus in Porto - and the doctorate itself. This is the place where, as an artist and a teacher, I spent most of my time, away from the research environment where I am actually enrolled to develop the PhD. This particular aspect supports the articulation the film Where Am I has with the one I'm not there: the titles evoke a sense of absence, ironically stressing the artist’s displacement from the country where he should be developing the research.
In Where Am I a drone was used to perform nine lift offs over an area with approximately two square kilometers.
The lift-offs happened exactly in the middle of each of the nine zones. The drone stays close to the ground around one minute, with a close up shot, only showing textures. Then goes up, in a traveling out movement, and stays at its maximum height for approximately one more minute, showing a very wide bird’s eye shot. After that, it comes back again to the same framing of the first shot. This movement establishes a direct visual relation to one of my main artistic concerns: the dichotomy between proximity and distance
Within this artistic concern, this video is linked to my research working process – as I was pulled away from the research, because of my full-time job, to come back at it, when the workload allowed. It also relates to the artistic work process, as I fully plunge into the projects while I’m working in them in the initial stage, to then move them aside for some time, so that in some cases they can gain some sense in my mind, in others to gain objectivity in the way I look at them.
The last note is related to two formal features of the films, which are intended to be elements of reflection not only on how we perceive these places – Asprela Campus and the museum space -, but also on how the author positions himself towards his research work. The first feature is the way the camera continuously, without cuts, moves on and off from close shots to wider ones, allowing for a broader contextualization and perspective on the subjects. The other is the confrontation between the high resolution with which Where Am I was filmed (ultra-HD, 3840x2160), against the low light, lack of sharpness and file compression issues of I’m Not There. The first work gives the viewers, among other things, a large amount of information to look at and to choose from, the other reduces its level, increasing the viewer’s effort to try and discern something from what they are seeing. Within the defined viewpoint of the camera’s eye, a polysemic approach is always an inherent intention of all the artworks.
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Vídeo UHD 3840x2160 | Sem Som, 5'37'' (full version)
Video UHD 3840x2160 | No Sound, 5'37'' (full version)
