Video Works

Abstract

Five films: 'Fly', 'Beautiful Pot', 'Beetle', 'Caterpillar' and 'Boxer' (2001-2003) were compiled for cinematic screening with seven others: 'Billy Bear', 'Barbary Goats', 'Cynthia', 'Earthquake', 'Hello', 'Sheep' (1996-2001). The latter films were re-edited, remastered and digitally restored from VHS tapes. All were made for display on individual monitors, and explore the use of a fixed frame, highlighting the curious ‘performative’ nature of everyday speech and encounters. The protagonists are obviously fantastical – puppets or humans dressed as animals. However, they are made, to draw the viewer into their world. In this pared-down situation, outside a human, social or historical context, they can explore language, philosophy and behaviour on a fantastical but nonetheless simple level. Made as individual vignettes or portraits, they look at how we use and are framed by language, objects and other people. In these films I aimed to portray the melancholy and humour in human interaction: how expectation exceeds actuality; how things don’t quite work and how people compensate for this. ‘Edwina Ashton Video works’ were film projections on cinematic screen. In this 45 minute compilation different speeds, activities, types of sound and emotional states were ordered and rearranged to build up a complex pattern of character and situation. These films explicitly looked to, explored and experimented with models of anthropomorphism used by Beatrix Potter, Fischli and Weiss and William Wegman