Charlotte Emerton-Rolfe

What’s the Matter?
click for PDF version of this page

Another addition to the collaborative series with Samantha Chang and Sofia Pantsjoha, this iteration of What’s the Matter? almost entirely removes the performers from the performance, once again exploring the limits of a medium. The series began  in November 2023 (last academic year) and was picked up again for the Winter Cabaret Open Studios.

There are three televisions off to the right, on the floor, leant against a ceiling beam as you enter the University of Reading’s School of Art Foyer. The lights are dimmed. Each television plays a different 10 minute long video of someone walking around the building you are now within.


Samantha walks anti-clockwise around the televisions, turning them on.
Installation shot of What’s the Matter? Three televisions, each with a different 10 minute long video, are playing.


Each of us related our own meaning to the videos we individually recorded, each contemplating something different. For myself, I was still questioning the human tendency to anthropomorphise in order to empathise: my camera, strapped to my foot, almost hops as I swing my leg to stride.



My video from What’s the Matter? 10 minutes in length.



Trials

Before reaching the video above, I tried recording vertically, at night time and changed how I was walking.


Clip from initial run through of recording.

We wanted there to be a sense of cohesion and so the vertical video was scrapped. The implications of a vertical video (relating it to social media and phones) weren’t relevant to the work either.


1 minute, 9 seconds in length. The brightest and most legible of the videos recorded at night.
23 seconds in length. I reach for the camera at the end, creating a point-of-view effect.

19 seconds in length. For this video I tried to increase the visibility by using a white bicycle light. The light wasn’t bright enough to have a significant effect but there is a subtle difference.