Street
Artist: James Nares (British, Born London, 1953 (Lives and works in New York))
Date: 2011
Medium: HD Video, Music by Thurston Moore
Classification: Electronic Media
Credit Line: Museum Purchase, by exchange and Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Object number: 2019.4
Label Text:A native of London who has lived in New York City since 1974, James Nares describes Street as “a love letter to my adopted home.” The video chronicles the everyday street scenes of a day in New York in September 2011. Individuals move through the city in slow-motion, allowing us to investigate movement, space, and the relationship between people and the environment around them—and to contemplate our own relationship with time and our surroundings.
To make the video Nares shot 16 hours of footage out of the back and sides of a moving SUV with a high-speed camera at a rate of between 500 and 1000 frames per second. She then greatly slowed the footage and edited the results down to 61 minutes of steady, continuous motion—which, if shown in real time, would last only three minutes. “My intention,” Nares explained, “was to give the dreamlike impression of floating through a city full of people frozen in time, caught Pompeii-like, at a particular moment of thought, expression, or activity….” Nares’ friend Thurston Moore, co-founder of Sonic Youth, composed and performed the video’s musical score on a 12-string acoustic guitar.
To make the video Nares shot 16 hours of footage out of the back and sides of a moving SUV with a high-speed camera at a rate of between 500 and 1000 frames per second. She then greatly slowed the footage and edited the results down to 61 minutes of steady, continuous motion—which, if shown in real time, would last only three minutes. “My intention,” Nares explained, “was to give the dreamlike impression of floating through a city full of people frozen in time, caught Pompeii-like, at a particular moment of thought, expression, or activity….” Nares’ friend Thurston Moore, co-founder of Sonic Youth, composed and performed the video’s musical score on a 12-string acoustic guitar.
On view