Footage was shot on June 28, 2021, and records the various actions that build to a single performance. The work dialogues with the performance for camera tradition, but it is clearly edited and narratively stylized. There is no direct audience. The main recorded action is me sitting on bags of ice for several hours while they melt under my weight and temperature. A rudimentary microphone and speaker set up transmits noises from the hallway into my performance space.
The title of the work straddles two meanings. Footage can mean a “film or videotape that shows a single event or place.” Footage also refers to how the size of rooms and buildings are measured, i.e., square footage. Scales of distance and time are conflated in this work through the melting of ice and the shifting of my body, in addition to the empirical measurement of time offered by the clock. The performance takes place in a re-purposed elementary school, where artist studios still contain artifacts from the building's former life.
As Footage progresses, the ambient sounds from the hallway, people walking, doors opening, etc., permeate through the speaker into my setting. The telephone room, curiously named, beeps at a consistent rhythm and frequency. This sound may also remind the viewer of a more clinical setting, such as the heart or oxygen monitor used in a hospital. The beep permeates my video at regular intervals, acting as another measurement of time passing, in addition to the clock ticking and the ice melting beneath me.