The Samstag Alumni

The 2007 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships

Anthea Behm | Sarah CrowEST | Kirra Jamison |
Paul Knight | Jess MacNeil | Nick Mangan |

The strangeness in Jess MacNeil's videos is subtly created through her use of digital manipulation. She removed the people who animate the steps of the Sydney Opera House, but left their shadows. Surprisingly, the result is something that could be described as visual music. Possibly this is because the parallel lines of the steps suggest the staves of a musical score, on which the dark fragmented shapes ascend and descend like the notes on a scale. Their rippling movement is in itself musical, like a piano trill. They contrast dramatically with the twilight serenity of boats on a still stretch of the Ganges River in The Shape of Between. The slightly slowed motion of the boats is cyclical, eventually returning them to the point where they began.

The title of that slow and lyrical passage gives some indication of MacNeil's approach to filmmaking, and emphasises that her intentions are more abstract than narrative. Both of the backgrounds she used, the hard regular steps and the formless expanse of water fill the frame completely. Movement pervades every part, like a non-figurative colour-field canvas with a composition that is literally dynamic. It seems quite logical that MacNeil is also a painter.

Timothy Morell
from his Samstag catalogue essay;
Loose connections

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• The Samstag Alumni

Opera House Steps December 2006
still from digital video
duration 2 minutes, 28 seconds
view the video
© the artist
 

The Shape of Between 2006
still from digital video
duration 12 minutes, 59 seconds
view the video
© the artist