Québec: observations on the familiar and the exotic (a Video Sketchbook), video installation and book, 2006 (ongoing).

 

The Video Sketchbooks are an ongoing experiment in photographic notation and exercise, in which I create a method/space for registering
and testing ideas without them having to take the final form of an artwork. They are also a way of focusing my thinking in the temporal and geographical present, acknowledging the idiosyncrasies of a new environment, showing people, animals, places, objects and events, all happening by chance.

 

The images are photographic stills recorded on tape, lasting 5 to 7 seconds each, together with the sound of the time that each photograph was taken.
This artwork can be experienced either as a projection with sound, or as a photo book.

 

Québec: observations on the familiar and the exotic is a project realised in Québec City, Canada. This work questions the concepts of familiarity
and exoticism in relation to the place, person or object to which they are applied. These urban images from Quebec City show a place where the cultural differences are strong and where the definitions of the familiar and the exotic are at their most problematic state. The top image is an installation view,
while the bottom image is a selection of what is shown in the small screen, from a group of 3000 photos taken during my stay in the city. 

 

© Frederico Câmara 2006.