(S)mother

digital video 39s 2017 The video, (S)mother, is built around a found photograph of a mother and child. The photograph is ordinary. A smiling mother and child pictured outside their home. The photograph suggests domestic contentment but the picture shows only one moment and the representation of this particular mother is constrained and trapped within the boundaries of the photograph. In the video this photograph has been altered through repeated photocopying degrading the image and disrupting its meanings. Other images and drawings are superimposed onto the original photograph, causing further disruption, with a narrative that belies the restraint and ordinariness of the image. (S)mother is looped creating an endless cycle of images trapping the viewer and the mother in a endless stream of repetition referencing Kaja Silverman’s idea that, “subjectivity itself is, in its most profound sense, nothing other than a constellation of visual memories struggling to achieve perceptual form.” (Silverman 2000, 89)