Capturing Release
Video
2:17
2005, Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia

The fragment of moment between the state of capture and that of release is not visible to the human eye.  It is too transient.  We see a state of capture, and we see its opposite, release – in which the butterfly, often a metaphor for freedom, flies away from its captor, and out of the capturing frame.  The camera, and its accompanying computer software is, however, able to distil these fragments enough for the eye to consider the liminal moment between the two states.  We watch the flutter and movement of escape of the butterfly, its dance of freedom.  Only the human captor’s hand remains – now marked with luminous traces of pigment that bear evidence of the presence of the recently released butterfly.

The work should be screened – projected onto a wall - so that the image reflects the actual life-size of an average human hand.




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