In unexpected places, in unexpected lights and colours, (sculpture made to be filmed)

My approach to research for Marfa fieldwork would be to develop a project that actually looks at the sites in and around Marfa. This would act as a constant within my thinking, acting as a site to be visited and revisited. Time spent on location in Marfa would help me to develop a series of interventions into the location, both in a hands on and conceptual way. In this sense I have to speak hypothetically about the various ways this research might manifest. For example with contact to specialists such as local historians, residents I would discover many things only possible by inhabiting a place over a period of time.

This process of knowledge gathering could then be enriched for example by a direct phenomenological study of light through photography, the study of landscape and light in relation to objects, architecture that would then enable a body of research  material and experiments to take place and grow.  This comes about because of the collection of photographs that I have called the Travelogue - an ever growing, constant activity behind my practice that informs and develops works, and working processes. To bring these two elements together Marfa and the Travelogue would be an objective in my research.

I made a sculpture, that has the title 'Sculpture made to be filmed' I came to film the sculpture in Valeries back yard, it was an incredible space to think about, and the sense of scale/distance and the light there with the hills in the background functioned as a phenomenological/sensorial backdrop, that made the sculpture function as an abstract signifier in the landscape, a sculpture with its own internal form of duration in relation to the fading light conditions surrounding it.

The film came to have the title 'In unexpected places, in unexpected lights and colours, (sculpture made to be filmed)'  This is partly influenced by a book called 'The Desert, Further Studies in Natural Appearances' by John Charles Van Dyke (I read some excerpts of this book at the symposium) Its a book first published in 1901. It draws upon the natural landscape and scientific understandings of that time to explain how there is such colour and light in the desert, and experiences of heat haze, as well as descriptions of the landscape and plant life.

I also visited a number of sites in and around Marfa photographing and filming them, I became very in interested in the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) that were built in the 30's and 40's, the Lido in Balmorhea state park Texas is an example of this.

I made a trip by car from Marfa to Monument Valley and back again, visiting random places on the way in New Mexico and Utah as well as more planned ones such as Las Vegas, Hoover Dam and Frank Lloyd Wrights architecture school in West Scottsdale, Arizona called Taliesen West, I had the aim to make a 16mm film through this journey that explored a potential development of the Travelogue as moving image.

The film that developed from this experience is a series of filmic fragments it brings together shots of my first encounter with 16mm film in the south of France in 2011, and so it is a 'Study for a travelogue in motion' here one place changes into another. 

Charlotte Moth : In unexpected places, in unexpected lights and colours, (sculpture made to be filmed) 2012, 16 mm film transferred to video, b/w silent, 3’

Charlotte Moth : Study for a Travelogue in motion 2012 16 mm film transferred to video, color, silent, 6’

Charlotte Moth is represented by Marcelle Alix Gallery, Paris