Swing

I'm interested in duration, how we experience time passing. A swing, with its predictable metronome movement, could measure time, at least there should be a regular rhythm to the action of a swing, but here the regular rhythm is disturbed. The swing never passes forward of the half way marker fixed by the tree but is consistently blown backwards upsetting our expectations. The sound track is a young girl singing a Gaelic nursery rhyme, 'hello, how are you, I'm fine thank you'. I don't speak Gaelic but the rhythm which is set up in the first three lines of the piece and the very basic content of the words are important to setting up an ordinariness which is then disrupted by its delivery and which creates an almost sinister edge to the piece. It feels almost threatening as we question why is the swing empty, what is preventing the swing from coming forwards, is it natural or man made force. Other people have read more in to the symbolism of the swing, such as a lost childhood, but I haven't got that far yet!