IN THE COUNTRY
by Beth Warshafsky

As a tool, the computer is unique in allowing an artist to approach the same material in different  contexts.  A captured image can be one still in a sequence for a video haiku or a central part of a "background plate" in a digital print.  This kind of "materiality" also  applies  to sound. The fluid sense of these new forms is something I am interested in.

"In the Country" is a Iris print which unfolded through process. The words were written on a napkin the morning after a dream. The images came from a sequence of video stills, a time in the country that resonated with me in a particular way.  Both the dream and the stills evoked a real and symbolic space, something familar but also lost. Working with the images and words I was able  to expand an impression this one image, implying a vertical sequence that is simultaneous and still. Collapsed time,  an impression.  this space, this feeling.

The animated GIF, "In the Country" continues the process. It's source was the single image, now torn into pieces and sequenced in time.  In both pieces, the text is more textural than clear. But for me, it was an essential motivator as I worked.