Moving Images
Moving Images, held in October 2019 at Edwina Corlette Gallery in Brisbane, Australia.
Emilie Syme-Lamont draws attention to the interstices between moments remembered and mis-remembered through these painted film stills. Taken from home videos, the images intend, through loose application of paint and 'empty' spaces on the canvas, to draw attention to moments that are lost, captured, mis-remembered or obscured in the process of recalling.
Referencing the work of Edward Muybridge and early video art Pioneer Joan Jonas, Emilie's intentions align to look closely at these past moments and more specifically to what is left out.
Accompanied by text of Melbourne based writer Eleni James- whose words summarise the intangible and complex nature of memory that a clear definition seems to fall short.
MOVING IMAGES
I. That Goldfish Myth
No matter common conceptions
we aim to make their lives
interesting
poor captives
difficult to see for its difference
bubbled breath - humming, disturbing the water
in its ticklish desperate way.
II. A Collection of Things as They Seemed
All assembled, a distinctive dossier of us
emerges
written with light as if light
could penetrate stone
transform pets and party dresses
into things fixed -
remembered and revered as Tablets of Law
then later,
bloody historians revise.
III. Rearranging the Furniture
When you take the S.N.C.F
from Lourdes to Bordeaux
the carriages cleave apart like magnets
suddenly repelled
for divergence of direction on
a sick tilt
unmoored
IIII. Past continuous
A mood most skilled in
acrobatics - requires tension -
slacklines suspended
above and
below
the plot
of each tale and
show
Come curtain call
ovation, continuous
Eleni James is a writer living in Melbourne. Her work explores interior geographies and the construction of personal mythologies.