Glimpsed
A project that created a series of surprising encounters with endangered animals in the centre of Bristol.
People walking past the windows of MShed on Bristol’s Harbourside, after dark, were suddenly confronted with bright, vivid moving images of animals that appeared and disappeared unexpectedly. Some of these animals appeared fleetingly for a couple of seconds or just a fraction of a second, while others lasted longer but still disappeared all too soon – like something special and rare, displaced from its habitat and glimpsed for a moment in the modern city. In some cases the images would appear almost subliminally, provoking the audience to question whether they actually saw what they thought they saw.
These ‘encounters’ were produced using projectors, housed inside the building, which back projected fragments of film onto special projection material behind the windows, which became, in effect, giant TV screens. This project appropriated existing film footage, manipulating, editing and displaying it in ways that removed it from it’s usual context.
The project was supported by Arts Council, England and ran in partnership with Wildscreen and ARKive in conjunction with the Wildscreen Festival. The project was also supported by the BBC Natural History Unit who supplied the original film footage.
Along with the work of Wildscreen/Arkive, the project aimed to highlight the fragility of the species featured. The briefness of the moving images implicitly suggested their vulnerability and a sense of time running out… the fleeting presence of an animal that disappeared in the blink of the eye.
Project info
Date: October 2016
Location: MShed, Bristol
Supported by
Arts Council England
Wildscreen
BBC Natural History Unit