#1 – Counting time
For my first animation I kept it quite simple and drew tally marks with chalk on a blackboard. I was thinking about repetition and ways that people measure time and labour, inspired by the way Tehching Hsieh recorded the passage of time through repeated images in his ‘Time Clock Piece’. Tallying is a commonly used way of counting and recording, but it’s interesting how we can represent an hour, a day, or even a year with a single stroke, like the effort or time that went into something can be reduced to a small symbol. I think tallying also indicates labour as it is often used to record an action or labour of some kind. The animation seems to show a sense of futility in repetition and in the fact that we have no idea what the tally is recording… I suppose it is open to interpretation.
#2 – Labour in motion
For my second animation I wanted to investigate physical labour of the body in the context of daily life, as well as experiment with creating motion from a series of still images. I carried my camera facing down by my hip and set it to take a photo per second as I walked outside to my letterbox and back – observing labour in moving my body and travelling. This short walk doesn’t seem like something that involves a lot of labour, however, I think we don’t often recognise just how much our bodies do for us or appreciate the everyday movements they allow us to do. To emphasise this idea, I angled the camera directly downwards, seeing the motion of walking from a perspective which we normally wouldn’t focus on. However, I think my animation looks disconnected and unclear, and overall I don’t think it shows the ideas effectively, but I would like to continue exploring motion and the body in my work.
#3 – Labour in sitting still
In contrast to my last animation, I thought it could be interesting to explore stillness. I photographed myself sitting outside on my deck for a few minutes as I challenged myself to sit still – something I find quite difficult to do! I wondered if there would be labour in keeping myself still, highlighting mental labour and perhaps the fact that our minds continue thinking and processing in stillness (even when we sleep, we dream). I decided to contrast this form of mental labour and stillness against the setting, which shows physical labour in the neighbouring construction site with a digger operating and the continual movement of life in our surroundings such as clouds and trees etc. While I found it hard to not move as I was sitting, I eventually found myself embracing the time I had to give my body a break. I thought about how we barely take the time to just be still.