nikki forrest

I have been making video since 1989. At that time I lived in a small city in Western Canada where I worked at an artist-run-centre. A group of us started a video production collective with some old equipment donated by a cable TV station. I was always interested in experimental film and sound although my background was in drawing and painting. Video seemed to be a medium that could contain aspects of various things I wanted to explore: time, image, sound, text, movement. Since then I have made many short experimental videos that have been shown at festivals and galleries including: The Mix Festival (New York), The Glasgow Film and Video Workshop, The Oberhausen Short film and Video Festival (Germany), Ausland (Berlin), Le Center d¹Art Santa Monica (Barcelona), Signal and Noise (Vancouver), The Images Festival (Toronto) and the Festival Internationale du Films sur l¹Art (Montreal). I have also participated in several international artists residencies including The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec studio exchange in Buenos Aires and The Canada Council studio at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. I am interested in the interactions between technology, memory and the senses and also more generally in the idea that technology can be used as a way to explore, extend and develop the senses.

Film Link: Flip/Bend (Part 1)

Flip Bend (Part 1) / 2013 / 8;30 min / low saturated color / stereo sound / no dialogue
« Flip/Bend (Part 1) » is from a recent series of videos that work with perception, gravity and the body as points of departure. In this series I was interested in looking for ways to explore the nature of our perceptual contact with the world. I also wanted to create a sense of instability and uncertainty. Drawing on the history of early experimental film and early performance video, visual and perceptual effects were made using live, physical strategies. This video attempts to create an artificial perceptual field. Proprioceptive, exteroceptive and kinesthetic senses are momentarily challenged making it difficult to maintain a clear sense of what is happening. We know that perception is circumstantial and based partly on what we alreday believe to be possible. In these videos I wanted to explore moments of rupture where these basic assumptions no longer make sense. I am interested in how we apply judgment and interpretation to the signs presented to us by our senses. Our judgment is neither purely sensory nor logical and it may transcend both reason and experience. Consciousness is a process that includes both sensing and reasoning and it can be thought of as a projective activity. I wanted to draw attention to this by trying to materialize (or at least make visible) some of the overlapping psychological and physiological aspects of perception. There is also (I hope!) a humorous aspect to the video. The two performers often find that they are not in quite in the same space at the same time while they attempt to construct and decontruct their surroundings.