In comparison to both of these forms, surveillance and CCTV footage could be considered to occupy the temporal present. Whilst recorded footage could be considered evidence and therefore an index of the past, its natural temporal territory is for the live experience of observation/voyeurism/surveillance. Multiple surveillance points allow the conditions for narrative.

14’ 36” explores the mutli-strand narratives of this duration of time on a Tuesday morning in May 2008.

An investigation into the documentation of multiple spaces resulted in ‘A Description of the World: After Daguerre’ in 2008. At the time of recording a number of options suggested themselves for the treatment of the material. A split-screen technique could be used for the surveillance type imagery; a multi-screen or monitor installation that re-enforced the separate yet connected physical spaces; or a single-screen interpretation. The latter of these was the format selected at the time. Despite a desire to create an alternative format, the multi-monitor installation was not realised at the time due to the lack of immediate exhibition opportunities. Exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art (2018) offered an opportunity to create this alternative work (14’ 36”), reformating the original footage.

Berger/Mohr; Another Way of Telling; Writers & Readers; 1982

John Berger writes about the narrative opposition between photographs and films; photographs being retrospective, and films anticipatory. “Before a photograph you search for what was there. In a cinema you wait for what is to come next”.