97 Years -- Jo Hellier

  97 Years is my favorite video installation work. This work give me some good inspirations to my personal work. especially I got a good idea from this work is the aspect for the video voice. 

Jo Hellier is a Bristol based contemporary artist working with performance, installation, film and sound. She makes considered works for different public spaces, experimenting with form and narrative structure to create exchanges both personal and expansive.

The video here: http://vimeo.com/63820996

Approximately 800,000 people within the UK are diagnosed with Dementia, an illness that affects the memory, communication and empathy. Jo Hellier‘s 97 years is a conversation between herself and her grandfather as she attempts to unlock his fondest memories.

Instigated by Jo Hellier, the art installation began with the organisation of a selection of fresh and rotting apples. 

Transfixed in her mission to find the perfect combination, it was a case of trial and error as she scrupulously aligned the fruit in the correct order. Combined with the dimly lit staging, apple bunches hanging from harp like strings, and the repetitive visuals of apple orchards, this only added to the mystique of the narrative, an unanswered question of the apple’s significance. The visuals began to take prominence, as the footage meandered between the elderly male protagonist wondering through serene gardens and orchards whilst a droning and jarring soundtrack played. This contrast between the imagery and sound created an at mospheric , surreal and intriguing setting, a mysterious world all of its own. A gradual process, the audience became an orchestra of speech and memory as Jo conducted our every move. Each audience member was assigned one of the strings, each controlling how far up or down the apple bundles were positioned. It were as if she were seeking our help to clarify the situation and the hazy sounds. Eventually, the soundtrack became audible sentences, as they were revealed to be the words of Jo’s Grandfather. It became apparent that the apples were a source of association, a means to accessing memories, engaging in conversation and unlocking emotions. The apple bunches on the surface not only signified nature and the serenity of agriculture, but the strings symbolised Jo’s grandfather’s mindset and the attempts by people from the medical profession, friends and relatives to reach out to him as his memory faded. This was powerful, and heartbreaking as the piece then transitioned into video footage of Jo and her grandfather having a conversation. Visually, the shadows created by the apples on the screen created flecks, impairing the footage. A way of displaying the decline of memory. 

So I feel Jo Hellier’s 97 years is a unique, engaging and fascinating video installation, she was integrating the audience into her and her grandfather's memory world. 

My artwork is same with Jo, it consider to make a project around ' Memory '.  I also use the video way to explain this topic, it will focus on the different images of that swing in my last three years life. In this project, the creation object is the swing. In my opinion, the memory is like a non-stop and metronomic cycle. I always sit on the memory swing to think about the past things. But I know the time is always balanced, it will not because you are miss something and to let you go back to that moment. However nobody is willing to stop the memory easily. People sometimes will still stay in the repetitive memory to feeling the expectations and the lost, and miss someone or something.

As before I said, 97 Years give me a good inspiration for the voice aspect. In my video, the clock sounds very slow is the inspiration form in 97 Years video, Jo's grandfather's slowly voice.However the idea is different from her. In my opinion, I think when people stay in the memory, rhythm and regularity of time will always be ignored. We through out brain back to the previous image and the story, through the eyes of all the things happened in the past. So the slow clock sound is a hint, it is from we have become slow flashback memories in our minds all the time, but it also exists in the memories of the whole process. It suggesting that our memories of the images although looks real, but could not escape fate of time. They are doomed to become the past, eventually become our experienced lived memorial.

I also thinking about the installation part for my video work. I don't want to just make a simple video to show to the audience. The mainstay for my work is the swing. Like for Jo's work the mainstay is the apple (contact the orchard and her grandfather) That is the most important item in my work. So I think I should show the real swing with the video to audience together. The real swing will contact the video story, to let the audience feel my memory story in the reality. I plan to finish this idea in next term, to make my project be a video installation work.

The sketch for my work set up