Three Turf Pieces

Year:

2023

Duration:

7:53

Recorded:

2010

In the late spring of 2010, I set out to record a series of audio-visual explorations of the undergrowth.

I simply attached the camera to a tripod and then inverted the tripod with legs folded flat to allow me to record a few centimetres from the ground. I used a lens with wide aperture and fixed focus. I had limited visual feedback through a small flip-screen on the camera.

I thought it would be interesting to explore the vegetal world no higher than a foot from the ground – a world completely overlooked.

The simultaneously recorded soundtrack of sublime springtime birdsong and ambience, I slowed down to slightly surreal effect – like some sort of heightened awareness.

Like most of my video work, I am interested in creating a one-take, audio-visual entity – as an attempt to share pre-lingual, pre-cognitive experience; and convey the simple wonder or resonance of that experience.

Some viewers might note in the title a reference to Albrecht Dürer