What Am I? (2016) 59:00

VHS

Collaboration with Jack Quick

This piece was created for Shoot, Rewind, Splice, Remember in early 2016 and was exhibited on a CRT TV playing off a VCR. It's an experiment in editing directly onto VHS using two old VCR players and video title generators owned by collaborator Jack, and a Sony Handycam video 8 camera, given to Helen by a fellow member of the Camera Club.

What am I? celebrates the novelty of using obsolete analogue video technology. Throughout the piece there are references to the technology itself, with the first 20 minutes are dominated by the complicated task of getting it to work, and the occasional mess of layered titles and video snow experiments scattered throughout.

The ability to shoot new video footage that shares the same aesthetic as the hours of 90's home movie footage is another source of intrigue. It has created the opportunity to explore a space over time, by cutting between video footage shot at Helen’s Grandparents’ house from 1987 to 1997, with similar looking footage filmed in the same place in the present day.