Thomas Lock
Breaking points - Installation - 2010
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 12
Installation
Breaking Points is a single screen video and stereo sound installation. The main content of the work consists of photographic images of bunkers (built during the Second World War on the coast of northern France) and field recordings made in and around the bunkers. Both image and sound have been aesthetically manipulated to bring out the archaic and ruin like quality of the bunkers. The primary focus of Breaking Points is the bulky permanence of the bunkers combined with their ongoing decay. On studying the cumbersome and harrowing concrete bunkers and the harsh weather beaten landscape, the artist discovered an entropic system that mixes a strong aesthetic contrast conveying the results of man-made architecture (untouched for decades) battling with the elements. The video within the installation is programmed to select and display one image at a time from a bank of hundreds. This image selection process is completely random and so is the display time for each individual image. As one image appears in this random manner the previous image is broken down to reveal the new image. This ongoing process is also affected intermittently by the looped complex sound composition playing within the installation. At different points the sound acts as a signifier for the installation experience happening in real time by sporadically being responsible for the changes taking place within the images. In this way Breaking Points presents the viewer with an ever-changing real time video and sound installation. Breaking Points is a work that attempts to reflect upon the entropic system that the bunkers and their surrounding landscape exist within. This reflection is touched upon through the randomized process of breaking down the material of video into its base elements, pixels and RGB. Through these aesthetic concurrences Breaking Points aims to present the viewer with an immersive yet fleeting installation revealing an endless system of architecture and landscape.
