Single Channel. 1:30

Condensate was made while in residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Selected to work with artist Gillian Wearing, the associate artists in residence were experimenting with video pieces of very short duration. The length of the piece allowed ideas of lifespan, termination, finality to develop in the works.

In Condensate, excerpts from a 1970's 16mm educational film titled "Your Chance to Live" are re-edited and composited with 35mm slides taken from another source. The slides were allowed to decay over time, with the image on each becoming corroded, and transferring some of its photochemistry to its adjacent slide, creating an unusual organic cross dissolve. This process of decay reinforces both the imagery and the short duration of the piece, where images of children sheltering from a tornado are distressed and obscured by image corrosion.

The title refers specifically to the process in Physics of creating condensates, which was used to determine the editing and layering structure of the work. Condensates are formed when atoms are isolated and chilled to temperatures barely above absolute zero. At these low temperatures, each atom displays identical properties, identical position, energy, size, forming a super-atom, which in itself constitutes a new form of matter.