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| documentation of shoot with iPhone using TiltShiftApp by Toni Matlock ©2012 |
We have all said it, right?
Knock yourself out.
It’s meant as a phrase of encouragement but mostly casually
and without much pressure. Right?
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| still frame from "capturing velocity" by Toni Matlock ©2012 |
Well this past spring, I said it to myself and accidentally did
a doozy, literally. It happened in the
midst of a studio project. I have been
working on a series of art works that contemplate wind. The series began when I received an artist’s
residency at Jentel in Wyoming in 2011.
(
Click here for my posts on the Jentel residency.) Each work in the series is a study of wind
and the human relationship with it.
In the spring of 2012, I set out to document the wind
activity in the Missoula valley. I
packed a video camera and a portable windsock and hiked up a ridge where I was
confident I would collect good wind activity and have a visually strong shot of
the windsock. I wanted to collect a
visual representation of wind. I wanted
to study its patterns and habits through the lens of a camera. I set out to do so roughly every day.
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| still frame from "capturing velocity" by Toni Matlock ©2012 |
In the first few days I explored the perimeters for the
collection. What would be the boundaries
for the piece? Would the location always be the same? How long would I shoot
each day? Which way would I point the
camera? Would it be the same every
time? First, I decided that the camera
must always point to the West. Simply, I
preferred the aesthetic of the shot when pointing west. The windsock looked most alive to me in this
direction. And I always shot in the
afternoon, between noon and five o’clock.
Then, in an effort for economy, at first I only shot for 30 seconds, but
it felt incomplete, like I was interrupting the shot – interrupting the
wind. In the middle of a gust of wind,
with the windsock popping around chattering about the speed and shifting directions,
I looked at the time and after 30 seconds were up, I clicked off the record
button. It felt like I was being
rude. The windsock continued bobbing
around but I wasn’t capturing it. I had
gone out there for more than this, so I changed my own rule and decided that
each day I needed to record a complete thought - the wind’s complete
thought. (Or my perception of it.) I
would watch and listen and feel whatever I concluded that would be. I let the wind be as expressive or quiet as
it appeared it wanted to be each day. I
shot up to 10 minutes in a day as long as I recorded a single ‘complete
thought’ from the wind. I did it for 30
days.
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| still frame from "capturing velocity" by Toni Matlock ©2012 |
So there I went, each day in a routine of charging camera
batteries, loading the camera and its supporting parts into my pack, strapping
a tripod to the back of it, heaving the entire bundle onto my back and carrying
the 2-piece metal portable windsock in my arms like a baby. I never hiked very far, but I always went
uphill. Each day, after placing the windsock,
setting up the camera and selecting the frame of the shot, I sat with the
wind. On beautiful clear days, when the
wind was low or still, I wished for it.
I longed for the slightest breeze. I made note of the different birds that I
met. I paused to enjoy their
chatter. I peered across the valley and
measured the clarity of the air from one day to the next. On cold, rainy, tumultuous days, I hid under
raincoats and fought the wind to cover my camera and protect it and simultaneously
rejoiced the dynamic performance of the windsock. I also wondered, repeatedly on cold or wet
days, who the hell’s idea is this? Why
am I sitting out here with a storm rolling over? Oh, right.
I decided to do this. Steady on.
On one particularly crappy day, I hastily packed my
gear. The tripod dangled a little too
high off the pack. When I reached the
location where I wanted to shoot and started to take off the pack, I forgot to
unclip one clasp low on my waist, so the load fell back and all its weight pulled
hard at my waist. Instinctively I
shifted forward and launched the load up on my back again. In doing so, the dangling tripod went too far
and cracked me in the back of the head.
I went black and dropped to my knees.
One knee landed hard on a pointy rock.
Without thinking, I quickly stood and unleashed myself from the pack and
let it drop to the ground as if it were a bomb from which I needed to distance
myself. I sat down again on thorny weeds
and rocks. Everything slowed down. The
chirping of birds distorted like I was under water. When I heard the train
huffing along below me in the valley, I laughed out loud. I just knocked myself out. I looked around but no one was there to see
what a silly thing I had done. I felt
like a cartoon without an audience.
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| still frame from "capturing velocity" by Toni Matlock ©2012 |
Eventually, I forced myself up and continued with my
shoot. On that wet, cold, and windy day
I wondered more than most other days what brought me to this place - this place
of working out conflict and connection with a camera. When I finally hiked off
the mountain, I felt my questions answered and yet persisting more than
they had been before.
I’m sharing this story partly because I think it’s
funny. It’s funny in that it reveals how
confusion and mistakes can give way to clarity and humility right when you need
it. At least it reveals that to me.
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| still frame from "capturing velocity" by Toni Matlock ©2012 |
The culminating video, a compilation of the 30 days of
shooting, is four and a half hours in length and titled “capturing velocity”. I present the video as a projection into a
white porcelain-enameled cast iron sink filled with salt. You look down into the sink, to watch the
video on the grains of salt. It is on
view at the
Missoula Art Museum as part of the 2012 Montana Triennial
exhibition until August 26th. To find it,
enter the Museum, go up the stairs, turn left, go left again and up more
stairs. The piece is in the far corner. MAM is open every day this summer.
I’ll also be giving a brief talk about the piece and my process at MAM
during First Friday on Friday, around 7pm August 3rd. Please come on by if you are in town.
A sample of video from "capturing velocity":
