Snap Happy

This video work was selected by the Paris-based curator and writer Chris Sharp. Sharp's curatorial premise was the idea of art as a series of “highly suggestive clues” containing narrative potential. The result “imitates the chapter headings typically found in 19th century novels. Taking his point of departure from hidden stories, told through adumbration, dissimulation and subterfuge, this exhibition aims to conceal itself by withdrawing into its surroundings”. `Snap Happy' reflects Sharp's idea of an “elliptical narrative”, by exploring ideas of subjectivity in relation to photography, as well as the digital loop. Snap Happy explores narrative potential in art and the subjective process of `truth' in relation to photographic processes. The work consists of Super 8 footage of a group of tourists looking at and photographing a scene that lies beyond the camera frame. The footage was digitally scanned, edited on computer and presented as a looped DVD on a television monitor sitting on a table. This creative work combines analogue and digital processes in order to explore both the moving image as simulacra and as subjective points of view. It was exhibited alongside interdisciplinary works by 10 international artists including Fernanda Gomes (Brazil), Patrick Pound (Australia), Nina Canwell (Sweden, lives New York) and André Guedes (Portugal). An essay by Chris White was included in this exhibition.