Mind the Gap
Mind the Gap is a very personal body of work, developing over a number of years and still in creation. It is a venture into psychogeography and is created by wandering one of Melbourne's many railway lines. The railway line does not feature, only the urban discoveries along the way are recorded. A delve into the ever sprawling metropolis.
Abstract
“Psychogeography: a beginner’s guide. Unfold a street map of London, place a glass, rim down, anywhere on the map, and draw around its edge. Pick up the map, go out into the city, and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go, in whatever medium you favour; film, photograph, manuscript, tape. Catch the textual run-off of the streets; the graffiti, the branded litter, the snatched of conversation. Cut for sign. Log the data-stream. Be alert to the happenstance of metaphors, watch for visual rhymes, coincidences, analogies, family resemblances, the changing moods of the street. Complete the circle, and the record ends. Walking makes for content; footage for footage”. (Macfarlane 2005)
Extended
In Mind the Gap I have investigated the loneliness and alienation amidst the relentless progression of gentrification, over-development and rapid expansion. Each image suggesting a story which continues beyond its borders. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated between the landscape’s reality and that imagined by its conceiver.
I wander as a flaneur, observing and exploring those spaces which are often overlooked, trying to understand the world around me and contemplate themes of transition, remembrance and the everyday. My work situates itself in urban spaces, most unloved and often neglected. Through repeated journeys on walks in the urban environment, observing and recording, keeping a visual record of the stories revealed to me by the situation presented. The images created, impart a sense of isolation, even alienation with the conscious exclusion of the human form, they show only the residual of our existence. With these traces they create a narrative for the viewer, built from their own memories and past experiences. The work is informed by the psychological, social and political influences of the space upon its occupants over time. Revealing a fragmented landscape, reflecting the constant transitory state of these urban spaces and everyday life.