This installation was originally shown as part of my Fine Art Degree Show at Sheffield Hallam University in 2001. My intentions for showing the work within the window of John Lewis, Liverpool and as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2002 Independent Programme came about as a matter of chance - an opportunity to show a part of my work within a shopping area, as it was first to be intended. Although this was originally part of my Fine Art degree, it was unlikely to be shown at the out of town shopping centre Meadowhall on the outskirts of Sheffield where it was filmed. Nothing better therefore than to show it in my home city!
The installation consists of three main areas. “Lost” (video installation), “Line Up” (five figures including myself) and “Mirror Image” (light box). The whole idea came about from my dissertation research in the Photographic Department at Tate Britain, London. Whilst travelling on the tube I had mistaken a ‘passer by’ to be one of my best friends. I tapped this person on the shoulder and felt really embarrassed to find out that people on the tube train were all looking at me, especially with my scouse accent. I apologised to the man for doing this and received an answer in German! Whilst at University a lot of my friends including myself found it hard to keep our heads above water in terms of funding our studies and the student lifestyle, with student loans and part-time jobs. Quite a lot of my friends took part in police line-ups and actually got paid for the privilege of someone else’s misfortune. For me, this proved invaluable, as from this the idea was born to take away the identity of the individual, as happens in a police line-up. I have only just begun to realise that my work has always revolved around the individual. I find all people interesting in their own little ways, especially as every face has a story to tell. Every person has his or her own identity especially as you put a name to a face. I wanted to strip this down to its grass roots. From the video you can see that there is an individual dressed in suspect clothing. A scally, a shifty character, a shoplifter. Big Brother is watching you. CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) is a part of our lives whether we like it or not! I wanted to turn the tables on this. At the time, I was reading quite a lot of Roland Bathes, a philosopher and stumbled across a quote that summed up how I felt about my idea:
“It can happen that I am observed without even knowing it…very often, I have been photographed and knew it. Now, once I feel myself observed by the lens, everything changes: I constitute myself in the process of ‘posing,’ I instantaneously make another body for myself…”
(Roland Bathes. 'Camera Lucida')
As you can see within the video, “Lost,” not all is what it seems. Reality as we know it has been turned around. We see that it is not the normal type of CCTV footage. If you view the video closely, you see a character is actually walking normally and that the passing public are walking backwards. Instantaneously, you find yourself drawn to the character within the video. But who could this be? A stranger in the mists of the passing shopping public maybe or just an individual going about their daily routine. Could it now be that you are the individual that something has happen to? You are now the person viewing the video to find out your attacker! If you view closely “Line Up,” you are confronted with five individuals all dressed the same to jog your memory. But who can it be? This is where photography can play a vital part of identification. It also plays an optical illusion. As in photography you get different grades of paper ranging from grade 0 – grade 5. Grade 0 gives a lot of greys within the photograph and grade 5 mainly consisting of a lot of black and white. In “Mirror Image,” I completely strip the individuality from the faces of the characters and dress them in my own glasses and hat worn during the filming of the video. Men and Women are hard to distinguish. Who is who? Or who is trying to be who? Could they be the person within the video or myself? Height has nothing to do with this at all. Nor do we know the names of the individuals within the piece. Everyone appears to look the same as I first had noticed whilst travelling on the tube or indeed wherever I have visited within the world. A stranger is only a stranger until you have found out the first thing about them, their name!
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