CIRCA 111 article

Anne Seagrave

Anne Seagrave: from déjà vu; courtesy the artist

Anne Seagrave: from jamais vu; courtesy the artist

Over the last seven years I have concentrated upon devising video installation with original sound and a live-art interaction, usually a movement performance of under ten minutes repeated over a one-hour duration.

In 2001 I began experimenting with ideas derived from research into the abstract and unpredictable nature of memory function. My initial work is always on paper in the form of notes and drawings. I focused on the concept of déjà vu, with the aim to devise a visual presentation which would capture the essence of this curious sense. The Arts Council provided funding for the video element which was completed in 2002 in Paris with the French producer Fred Benoist. Fred has become an essential element in all my video work. I devise and perform in my own pieces and create the original sound scores, but it is Fred’s filming and production that for me gives the work a quality previously unimaginable. Déjà vu was filmed wearing black against white and reversed during the editing.

Many accidental occurrences happen during the editing process. It was while filming Déjà vu that I was shown a reference to the lesser-known phenomenon of ‘jamais vu’ in the novel Catch 22, and I began devising again.

The Arts Council also chose to grant-aid Jamais vu, and in February 2004 I spent a month at the Fundación Valpa­raiso in Spain creating the video element on paper, in the form of 200 story-boarded images. I worked with Fred again in August 2004. I had an idea for a moving background, something fluid and unpredictable. Fred drained the oil from his motorbike and spent hours filming to achieve a mesmerising result.

Jamais vu was premiered for Cork 2005 in January.

Anne Seagrave is A.H.R.B. Research Fellow at the University of Ulster School of Art and Design, Belfast.

Article reproduced from CIRCA 111, Spring 2005, p.57

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