Immersed is a journey into a (fictional) character’s mind. Composed of two elements: a one-shot video and a highly layered audio track, the video begins with an empty landscape in which a field stretches far into the distance. As a man walks on scene, one can immediately assess the scale of the scenery, which is quite large in comparison. Walking into the distance and further away from our vantage point, the man is eventually swallowed by the vast space as he disappears into the trees that align the horizon.

Urban sounds — alarms, television and radio voices, cars, traffic and sirens are interwoven and overlapped into an audio montage. As the man walks further into the distance, the sounds gradually collapse into one single voice that one can only assume belongs to the character we see (and then don’t see) before us. As a viewer, you are invited to accompany the unknown character as he enters the core of his most personal thoughts. Beginning with mundane tasks and things that he has (forgotten) to do, they gradually become more reflective, less expository, and more abstract. Like his steps, they begin to form a rhythm, which are purposeful and meditative.

This work invites you to slow down — to walk a slower and more deliberate pace. It invites you to contemplate some of the things that lie beneath the surface of the everyday, demonstrating how art can be a provocation for thinking about what constitutes y/our values and y/our beliefs.

Immersed (2006), 10’ x 13’, six minute video projection and audio montage.

IMMERSED

NATALIE LEBLANC