Alan Smith
Alan Smith’s Nothing spreads three years of ‘nothing videos’ over three screens. A mosaic of footage of him stopping and looking at his environment, each clip as long as the average time people look at artwork in a gallery.
Alan Smith’s Nothing is a 3 screen mosaic of short clips that Alan began recording with his phone in 2020 and never stopped. They began as recordings of wherever he happened to be at the time, often taken when catching his breath during walks in the countryside where he lives. Reflecting back on these people-less clips, he began to formalise them into a cascade of video squares on three screens, one for each year. with each clip lasting a bit over 19 seconds, which is apparently the length of time someone looks at an artwork in a gallery.
Alan Smith’s Nothing began life on the 17th January 2020 with a simple strategy that cast a net with no anticipated catch, or predetermined focus. Alan began capturing videos on his phone every day, three per location and each for 20 seconds. Together they are recordings of wherever he happened to be and with the exclusion of human presence.
For his installation that will be shown at Middlesbrough Art Week, a sequence was constructed with a new video appearing every 2:3 seconds and remaining visible for 19:07 seconds, (19:07 is apparently the average length of time someone looks at an artwork in a gallery) the videos sequentially roll through time covering a period of one year, with each year on each screen..
“At the outset, the videos were personal to me, the three 20 second videos amounted to a one-minute rest break, necessary while out walking, as I was striving to recover from ill-health. I couldn’t have known of the impending, significant shift in my daily life that would be brought about by Coronavirus; socially, culturally, in employment and with human visibility and physical contact diluted to an absolute minimum. Nothing had been contextually relocated and questions regarding solitude and isolation while alone on my walks became more significant.
Living in the remote village of Allenheads in rural Northumberland has provided space, quiet, and a strong sense of seclusion for the last 27 years. But now with my senses on high alert my experience of place had been amplified and the magnitude of all around me from the smallest particles to the grandest expansive vistas are in high definition. The seemingly inconsequential had been stirred, redirecting the way I had previously and inadvertently engaged with life on planet Earth. Normality had lost all meaning and Nothing was growing. Nothing has become a new way of recognising time as it passes and has reconnected me to the place I have lived for 27 years.
Nothings make me feel rebooted and more able to see and feel my locale and purpose. I am astounded by the immense power that each set of videos has to trigger detailed and specific memories of each location, time of day and emotions during those short periods. The twelve months has been a living time time-lapse of seasonal change, meteorological movement and psychological bending that I am still struggling to come to terms with from whatever small part of the planet I happen to occupy. Since the 17th of January 2021 I have continued to collect the Nothings, It would appear that Nothing does last forever.”