Cast Movements: Leitmotif is a silent, looped film where large, wobbling, clustering soap bubbles are blown through a net-like material of knitted fishing line. The work comprises of six, short scenes observing these bubbles from six different angles.
"Cast Movements is a collective name for three moments of translation, from text simultaneously into music and moving image. Cast Movements: Leitmotif became the visual interpretation of these short poetic texts. With its references to language, lyricality, repetition and translation — from internal to external, text to image, breath to bubble — this work combines ideas of materiality, language and time that I liken to the swirling mixture of the dishwashing liquid, water and gelatin bubble recipe recalled from my childhood, that is used in the work."
This work was originally proposed to CIRCUIT for the public art project Masons Screen, a large video monitor situated in downtown Wellington at the intersection of government, retail and rail.
"The bubbles act as a sort of fishing lure, a shimmering, fluid motion to catch the eye in streams of bodies, commuters, passers-by. I want to lure the viewer into disrupting their everyday routine movements by compelling them to pause, slow down their walking pace, double back or take a detour; changing their daily patterns.
Bubbles are spaces of isolation, protective barriers from the intrusions of our environment. As commuters we are often in our own bubble, lost in space in a sense, detached from our surroundings. In an age of constant connectivity, I think of the AMOLED screens of our smartphones as externalized bubbles that we constantly burst with every tap, swipe, scroll and pinch of our fingertips.
This work is intended to be viewed in relation to other bodies or objects, to be glimpsed at while passing by, and returned to, revisited."
