Overpass

The research imperative was to investigate practically the digital screen as surface and how images move across the screen. Research questions included: how can the digital screen and its flatness as surface in terms of architecture be understood? How does the movement of an image across a digital screen and the sequential process it goes through relate to the flatness of the screen? How can the architecture of spectatorship in terms of this digital flatness and surface be framed? Research Context: Modernist painting can be seen as an investigation into the structure of the material through analysing surface by way of canvas and paint and considering the nuances of flatness. Video art continues this investigation in texts ranging from the structuralist films of Sharits, Jacobs, Kubelka, and Raban to the more recent digital productions of Takeshi Murata, Telcosystems, and Makino Takashi. For instance, Makino's practice, which includes Into Your Star (2011) and 2012 (2012) uses abstraction to scrutinize screen space, here redefined as a flattened image surface that engulfs our peripheral vision. ‘Overpass’ is situated within this tradition, though its use of digital rather than film sources extends the scope of investigation in terms of the temporal-spatial possibilities of the flatness of the screen. Manipulating a piece of found digital footage, ‘Overpass’ is a four minute moving image that explores and questions what is flat and how depth is created by way of a digital surface. Findings were disseminated by both screening the work as part of an exhibition, ‘NODE 10, Forum for Digital Arts, Frankfurt (http://node10.vvvv.org/pages/exhibition), 2010, and as part of a series of artist talks and feedback activities at Cornerhouse, Manchester 2012; FACT, Liverpool 2013; and Edge Hill Arts Centre 2013.