After noticing surveillance signs at the church in my initial visual research, I wanted to explore ideas about being watched. I thought about the notion that 'God is always watching', which is used to encourage people to act in line with the teachings of the Bible. This prompted an interest in the way people act when they think they are being watched- does it make them act more morally acceptable?
Proverbs 10:3
The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. [5]
To explore this idea I decided to record the eyes of members of my family and project them outside of our house. I started with the youngest and the subjects got older, ending on a male because I wanted to see if I could raise the level of perceived threat, using stereotypically more dangerous people. Would people act more cautiously if they could see they were being watched, rather than being told God was watching? When filming the installation, I noticed some of our neighbours looking out their windows, perhaps they felt curious or concerned, therefore showing that people act differently when they are being watched. This could be a reason why people act so morally when they are in church, because they feel a closeness to God.
Sue suggested I looked at Susan Collins, who makes video installations in churches and castles. I was drawn to 'Excavation' [6]- a hand digging up the floor, projected over a castle floor, which would make the viewer stop and realise it wasn't real. I also wanted to create something that somewhat blends in with the surroundings but makes people do a double-take and question what they have seen. I also looked at Tony Oursler's work [7], which features mismatched eyes projected onto strange 3D shapes. The eyes are unsettling and captivating, which is something I could take further if I do more experimentations of this piece.
I then focused on the ideas about death that I had researched, especially the sentimentality that surrounds it. I thought about the way religion romanticises death and it is seen as beautiful to pass on to heaven. To represent this, I took a piece of a bush in my site, which was half-dying on the floor. Its natural beauty reflects the naturalness of death and how it has been poeticised over the eyes. Despite this, the feeling of the graveyard was eerie and being around so much death invoked an innate fear of dying that we all have. I decided to use fake blood to represent the reality of death and videoed the pouring process to highlight the gruesomeness.
I am interested in Damien Hirst's 'For The Love of God' [8], which shows that material wealth is not important in the afterlife, even though we give money such a big cultural significance. I like the religious element to Hirst's work and I was inspired to present another juxtaposition. I focused on the way we as humans have changed something inescapable that we fear (death) into a something spiritual and religious. I am fascinated by the way humanity views death and how we react to being surrounded by it.
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