Common Love,
Aesthetics of Becoming
April 27–June 11, 2011
Tim Hyde
Video Panorama of New York City During Which the Camera Fails to Distinguish the City From a Snowstorm, 2006-07
Seven single-channel videos, color, silent 60 min.
Courtesy the artist and Meulensteen Gallery
Tim Hyde's seven-channel video panorama shows snowstorm footage that was recorded over a period of seven hours. Hyde filmed a one-hundred-and-eighty degree survey of the surrounding cityscape from a building in Brooklyn. Divided between seven screens, the installation does not offer a temporal "story" or narrative arc of the snowstorm, but instead focuses on the phenomenon of the camera failing to identify its subject through the autofocus lens. The camera lens continually pulsates as it grapples with the severe weather conditions and struggles to distinguish the cityscape from its surroundings. In this particular instance, the video camera, which often serves as the mechanism of manipulation and control, finds itself powerless against nature.