David Claerbout the Moving Still Image

David Claerbout is moving forward in the world of still images. While using creative digital technologies he creates stunning images with moving components within the still frame. In the current exhibit the SF MoMA, Claerbout has installed two different galleries with three projectors in each room. In one of the pieces he shows a still image of children playing around a tree. Not much you might think but within the still image there is moving pieces inside of the image. While the children are locked in time, you can see the branches of the tree swaying and the children's hair blowing in the wind.
From the SF MoMA exhibit website:
The ambiguous relationships between photography and cinema, stillness and motion, historical past and perpetual present are the subjects and substance of David Claerbout's contemplative video installations. The Belgian artist manipulates cinematic time, often depicting a single moment analyzed from multiple camera perspectives; at SFMOMA he presents a quartet of projections that explore the shifts in attention between the narrative scene in the foreground and the underlying social context of the architectural background. In its U.S. premiere, The American Room (2009-10) constructs and navigates the physical and political space of a formal concert. Also featured are Sections of a Happy Moment (2007) and Kindergarten Antonio Sant'Elia 1932 (1998), both built from photographic images of children's play; and White House (2005), which repeatedly reenacts a 10-minute violent confrontation over the course of a day.

This video-installation is based on a photograph dating from 1932, at the opening of the new kindergarten Antonio Sant’Elia in Como. We see children play in the school's functionalist garden (architect Giuseppe Terragni). The light is cold and it seems like the sun is low, creating long shadows of early spring.

The image of the children remains in between a spontaneously captured moment and a composed picture. The movement of the young trees suggests that the image is frozen, while it simultaneously continues to melt further into motion, undecided in which direction to go.

(Excerpt is taken from the Artist's web-site)




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