Rachel Garfield

At the Baconsfield Gallery in South London, there was a screening of two film by Rachel Garfield. The first one was called "Here There Then Now" (2009). The subject of the film was the role and life of the artist in the contemporary world, and it was an interview an old artist. The film wasn't a conventional documentary or interview. The focus of the video was on the artist's house, and life whilst having the conversation between her and the artist as voice over. I believe this is a very effective way to get the information to the viewer about what it was discussed, but also give background information about the person who is being interviewed by showing visually the place where they live. The subject of the videos were books, pictures, the setting of the house, his visitors - barely even seeing the artist. There was one shot I feel was very powerful, and very well done - there was a close up shot of the wheels of a wheelchair going through the house; this implied that the artist is wheelchair bound, but the film maker chose not to show him in a wheelchair, but to show this close up and let the viewer make all the links. What also really took my attention was the way the film was shown; it was split screen, on two TV's. More importantly, the split screens themselves were the same video but one delayed by few seconds. This was a very effective way of helping the viewer focus on what was important on the screen. The half screen on the left was the first to come up, and the second one on the right slightly delayed. This enabled the viewer to watch the first part and see what the shot was about in general, and then have a second chance to see it again and choose what to look at. It took a bit to accommodate with this, but once I got used to it and I started appreciating it and how well it worked, I couldn't get enough. After I got back home I looked it up online and found a clip of the film on Vimeo, only to realize that the film itself is actually split in four parts on the screen, but working in the same way. The viewer has three chances now to go and look in details at the content of the images.

Here There Then Now (Clip)- Stephen Dwoskin/Rachel Garfield from Rachel Garfield on Vimeo.