nonfiction filmmaker I photographer
Highway Culture
Analog Photography, Archival Pigment Print, 2019
Project Statment:
The glare of oncoming headlights moves as a texture - compounding upon the last wave creating an illusion of reality. It's interesting to think about where the light goes after we see it as its energy is not destroyed but transformed into memory. Subsequently, the recall of memory becomes a cycle of remembering memories and thus the light’s energy becomes subjective. In contrast, the film photograph can capture light empirically. It requires the same compounding of light on a single plain creating a realistic replication of light - aspiring to show us the truth in the light of subjectivity. Highway Culture explores the intersection of subjective memory and empirically memory in the setting of a car moving along an interstate highway - questioning our connection to landscape, memory, and light within passing places.
On long drives I find myself falling into a trance where I think about everything other than the passing lights. I wonder about the impact of lost connections, and the lane guiding my hands. I think of the passing places and what might happen if I stop along the highway for a moment. I imagine what I would see, and what I might take away. I think about the way my car frames the spaces around me, and what light is missed as I drive through the night.