James Faure Walker: F-G and the Iron Clocks of Film

  • ©,

Artist(s):


Title:


    F-G and the Iron Clocks of Film

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    2000

Medium:


    Giclee iris print presented framed in window mount with four inch border

Size:


    28 inches x 36 inches

Category:


Artist Statement:


    “F-G and the Iron Clocks of Film” was a by-product of some research I was doing at Kingston University for an exhibition last June entitled “Silent Motion.” This exhibition juxtaposes Muybridge’s photo sequences of the 1880s with present-day digital work. Muybridge came from Kingston, near London, and spent his last years there. Contraptions such as his “zoopraxiscope,” or the Friese-Greene camera-projectors in this picture, represent pioneering hardware – some would say extinct media – that hold iconic status for artists working to come to terms with the hybrid forms of digital art. In 1889, William Friese-Greene made a film in Hyde Park; the film was stereoscopic, made of paper, and looks like a Seurat painting. I photographed these cameras in Kingston Museum. Damaged by fire 100 years ago, they were salvaged from an Islington. factory and given to the museum in 1974. They also appear reproduced in the 1948 biography by Ray Allister – a pseudonym for Muriel Forth. By the time I photographed the cameras, the reels had been transposed.