“Getaway” is a 10 channel video installation that explores various identities and meanings of the word getaway. The project uses the backdrop of a tragic event that occurred at the Everglades in the mid-1990s to explore a misinterpreted land. The installation features a 30 minute audio track that includes the song “Getaway” written by Walter Hyatt. A cover of the song was commissioned for the project from the U.K. based musician, Francis Lung. The audio track also features a new interpretation of the song “Love” by Mica Levi from the film “Under the Skin” to match the speed of the slow motion in the video. The videos enable the viewer to take a cinematic journey through the land focusing on escape, death, and disappearance while the audio track explores leaving society, and the idea of humans as individuals in the vast landscape of the universe. 

 The exhibition includes a short publication titled “Getaway” that is an additional component of the experience. The publication includes a narrative story by the Northern Irish writer Brian Wilson. The narrative was generated from a web based project called “They Walk Amongst Us”. The writer was given no information other than what was available on the website (theywalkamongstus.org) to generate the narrative. The content was slowly released over a 10 day period, allowing the information to be gradually absorbed and resulting in another interpretation of getaway. 

  “Getaway” was produced following a residency at Everglades National Park, 2021, Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE).  

Getaway

A Brief History of Happiness, HD video,4:30, is a one channel video that is comprised of sampled audio and video from YouTube. It is a 25 channel video composite of various amateur musicians covering the song “Happiness” by Elliott Smith that is combined with audio excepts from motivational speeches and conversations about happiness. The video explores the similarities and differences of the performances while asking the viewer to think about “Happiness”.
 
YouTube has forever changed the landscape of media distribution by opening up the door for all to access, providing a platform for the everyday person to get their content out to millions of viewers. The first cover of the song “Happiness” was uploaded to YouTube on October 9th, 2006 about a year and a half after YouTube was launched. Since then there have been about 65 other covers of the song uploaded by various individuals from different parts of the globe. The video highlights content covering the past 12 years. The project speaks the idea of performance, fame, digital space, the line between professional and amateur.

A Brief History of Happiness

Collective Distance, 1 channel HD video 9 minutes, was conceived out of the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic. In the project I was interested in hearing from and speaking with people living in Valletta and other areas in Malta to hear the impact of the pandemic on their lives. Since most of the world has experienced some sort of lock down I wanted to hear how a country with a relatively small land mass, that is primarily accessible by plane was effected. The intent was to gather peoples experiences and tie them together in a narrative that creates a collection of perspectives allowing the viewer to find bits and pieces that they can relate to. Globally the pandemic has made people feel somewhat isolated and confined.  The film was created to allow people living thousands of miles apart to be able to experience a journey while allowing them to see that they are not alone by hearing the experiences of others.
 
In the project I created the website CollectiveDistance.org, to collect experiences. The responses from the participants ranged greatly in terms of the overall effects. Many were very content with life, adapting to the changes as they have been put forth by the government while others were using the time to reflect on the future moving towards big life changes. The feedback seems similar to how people in other parts of the world are responding.
 
In the film, I constructed a narrative that is intended to provide a variety of viewpoints which was reflective of the submissions I received. The film in itself is an observation of residents in Malta and their experiences during Covid-19. The film takes an unusual approach in regards to time by setting itself 20 years in the past, observing the pandemic as a future event. The narrative explores the idea of the perception of time with the main character recollecting a story from the past which is now present day.
 
The project was part of the Valletta Cultural Agency’s InnovAIR @home residency program. It was completed in August/September 2020.

Collective Distance

The Symphony of Names : No Man Is An Island, 4 channel composite video with 10 channel audio 13 minute loop, is a video/sound installation by Elizabeth Withstandley. The piece is a collaboration with the Icelandic composer Gunnar Karel Másson, created during a month long residency in 2017 at SÍM in Reykjavik, Iceland.
 
The installation explores individual identity in culture that is not tied to their name as a form of uniqueness. Throughout the world surnames play a large role in ones identity often seen as an identifier providing cultural and familial history. Icelandic surnames are not used in the same manner, making it a unique culture to explore identity and naming. The project uses a modern interpretation of “the symphony” using the human voice as the primary instrument speaking all the Icelandic names with an ambient soundtrack tying the whole experience together.
 
In the video, four different video channels are composited into one view showing a young boy on a journey through the unique countryside of Iceland. We follow the boy while he travels from one screen to the next while being surrounded by the sound of the symphony. The audio is a 10 channel track using all 4129 names from the government name list and presents them in a melodic yet slightly chaotic form featuring a variety of Icelandic people reciting the names.

The Symphony of Names : No Man is an Island

Searching for the Miraculous is a trilogy of video/installation works that uses Bas Jan Aders final work, “In Search of the Miraculous”,  as an entry point for a new experiential journey. The works explore identity, time, transcended experiences, and the romantic vision of a quest for something better.  The project uses video, audio, music and sculptural elements to create a contemporary version of the trilogy. It starts with  a cinematic short, then a connected journey between two people and finally concludes with a journey of a glass jar floating across the sea. The project is presented as a 3 channel video installation.
 
Searching for the Miraculous (Part 1: One Day in Death Valley) is a one channel video. The video takes the viewer on a cinematic journey following a young boy through Death Valley.  The narrative is comprised of lines extracted from the films Twelve Monkeys, The Truman Show, Synecdoche, New York, Blue Velvet  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, No Such Thing, Brazil, The Time Machine (1960), Solaris (1971), Starman, and Big Fish. The film questions reality by confronting the viewer directly asking if this is real.  The main character is a young boy which appears to be the younger possibly wiser self of the enlightened character. While seemingly quite dark he leads us on a journey through cinema with his sampled lines that push us towards the quest for something better. The desolate landscape is shot almost entirely during the “magic hour” which builds upon the romanticism of the piece. We are left with the ocean which is where Part 2 begins.
 
Searching for the Miraculous (Part 2: The Journey) is a connected transatlantic voyage shared between two people; an artist and a musician. The project started with a postcard that was sent to 50 people at the onset of the journey on July 9, 2019, 44 years to the day after Ader left from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The video displays multiple views of the connected journey through a number of composited screens shown simultaneously, giving the viewer a glimpse of the whole experience at once.  In the piece the artist completes Ader’s transatlantic journey by departing from Newark, New Jersey to Liverpool, England on a 10 day boat voyage and then traveling on to Cushendall, Northern Ireland. During the journey the musician, Jordan Lee from the band Mutual Benefit, created a score for the video based on the communication he received from the artist during the journey. The piece references elements of Ader’s original project (the ocean and the choir), while creating a new narrative from the connected journey. The videos glide through the seascape/landscape allowing the viewer to feel like they are part of the experience while exploring time and the transcended experience of the voyage
 
Searching for the Miraculous (Part 3: The Voyager) focuses on the journey of glass jar floating across the Atlantic while also tying the project to the origin of Bas’ journey, Cape Cod. The video shows a transformation of the character from Part 1 who disappears into the sunset and then follows a glass jar across the Atlantic.  The jar contains a miniature figure of this character with a map of Ader’s transatlantic journey etched into the glass, which illustrates the starting and end points of his project.  The video explores possible scenarios for the fate the character and his search for the miraculous.
 

Searching for the Miraculous

The Real Brian Wilson, 2 channel HD video with digital artifacts 23 minute loop,  is a community based project created to explore the idea of individuality as it relates to one’s name. It began in late 2015 with the launch of a website (www.TheRealBrianWilson.org) for the Brian Wilsons of the world to interact with and share their own personal story. Through a six month long social media campaign I solicited participation from strangers that had nothing in common other than all sharing the same name. The  installation encompasses a multi channel video presented with a series of artifacts including of hand written letters between Brian Wilson and I.
 
The multi-channel video presents a duality between an individual and a group of Brian Wilsons. One video shows an annual Brian Wilson meeting in which Brian Wilsons of the world meet in Scotland in a sort of ‘self help’ meeting type setting. The narrative in the group meeting uses stories submitted by actual Brian Wilsons through the website and features an actor named Brian Wilson. The other video shows the lone experience of Brian Wilson in Northern Ireland who has stumbled across a radio broadcast of the Brian Wilson meeting. The lone Brian Wilson travels through the unique landscape of Northern Ireland, a country that has been struggling with it’s own identity since it’s inception. Through the video he wrestles with his thoughts on individuality and the impact of his name.
 
The artifacts set up a narrative that enables the viewer to see into the project on another level, providing them with information regarding the “real” Brian Wilson as an active collaborator in the whole project. The piece plays with fact and fiction leaving the viewer wondering what is real and what is contrived in this exploration of individuality.

The Real Brian Wilson

You Can Not Be Replaced, 2 HD videos, 5 minute 24 second loop, is a two channel video installation featuring images of all 82 current and former members of the Dallas choral symphonic rock band, The Polyphonic Spree. The video is accompanied by an audio track that combines ambient cosmic recordings, spoken word and partial renditions of the Polyphonic Spree song It’s the Sun performed by former band members
Andrew Tinker and Corn Mo.
 
The band itself was formed in 2000 and over that time people have come in and out of the band, some calling it almost a rite of passage in the Dallas music scene. In the piece, the band members are represented in their signature stage-ware of a white robe, giving them a cult-like appearance.  Although the musicians have each brought something unique to this band, the sheer number of them forces one to ask the question, who are they? Are they memorable? Unique? Individual? The series recognizes and questions the notion of one’s individual importance as it cycles through a soundtrack leaving one wondering whether they are replaceable.
 
The creation of the project began in the late 2012, when all twenty-two current band members were photographed during a tour stop in Los Angeles.  The next two years were then spend tracking down all sixty former band mates, and traveling to various parts of the country to photograph them.

Add

Elizabeth Withstandley