Second Sight/Split Second brings together many of my various interests in art, science and the wonders of nature.  Ever since my stint producing science videos at MIT I have been amazed by Doc Edgerton’s high-speed photographs and films.  Recently, I had a the good fortune to borrow one of their high speed cameras for this installation.
 
I am interested in exploring human gesture to look at what we think we understand from a different perspective.  I’m also interested in challenging notions and perceptions of time and that relationship and tension between stillness and motion.  I decided to film ordinary and sometimes banal 1 second actions or gestures.  These are recorded using the specialized camera and when played back take 3 minutes to see the single second in its entirety.  There is an uncanniness to the images, an attraction/repulsion that can be hypnotic.  I present the work as a series on 14” flat screens, mimicking the traditional size and proportions of classical photography exhibition.
 
Second Sight/Split Second Installation Project
 
Chilangolandia: Capital in Movement
(16mm Film in Post-Production)
 
I have been a frequent traveler to Mexico and Latin America since 1997.  I have fallen in love with the place and feel a deep connection to the land, the culture and the people.  One of the icons of Mexican culture that has always fascinated me since my first visit there has been “Lucha Libre”, which is an outrageous Mexican style of wrestling.  I was drawn to the mythology and mystique of the game as well as its humor and fanaticism.  In the summer of 2001, I traveled to Mexico City to make a film portrait of the city with the Lucha as its focus but the vastness and cultural complexity of the city opened itself up to me in ways that transcend the simplicity of the Lucha Libre.  Chilangolandia will explore an impressionistic vision into the cultural layers and rhythms of life in Mexico City.  The film investigates the various sixteen districts of the city through an expressive documentary camera style that visually destabilizes and critiques its very own tourist gaze and its relationship to the spectacles, beauty, violence, and rituals that it encounters.
 
Balkan Rhapsodies:78 (completed May 07)
Jeff Daniel Silva
Works-in-Progress