At Hand, Europe 2012
Single channel video installation
HD 33’36, loop
At Hand is a site-specific video installation for 8 screens at the Europe metro station in Paris and was on display from June to October 2012. The work consists of intimate video portraits of anonymous hands performing. It explores how a person’s affective being in a place becomes visible through the micro gestures of hands. The participatory video performances are recorded in a studio, yet the outcome resonates with the embodied experience of a daily travel, during which one is only half-consciously aware of one’s motions. The affective bodies in front of the camera perform the tension between the body’s motility and the immobility imposed on it by the social context and the place.
The installation approaches the experience of traveling in a metro from a cinematographic point of view. The moving image hand-portraits placed into the platforms “cut” into the cinematic experience of a traveler and induce her to reframe her embodied observations of herself and of the others nearby.
The installation draws on the ongoing participatory video documentary practice. The audiovisual material in Europe was filmed in Helsinki and in Paris respectively, and has been specifically edited for the Europe installation.
Credits
Concept, production, video work, Heidi Tikka
Video post production, Pauli Luomahaara, Skarvi
Financial support
Finnish Cultural Foundation
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
In collaboration with
Crucible Studio, Department of Media, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Ècole nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs
Institut Finlandais