“I came to understand his experience of dementia to be one of time travel… this film is a deep exploration of what it means to travel, communicate and exist in multiple experiences of time.”
Now in its third year, the FluxusMuseum Prize for Experimental Video gathers eleven artists and collectives from a field of over 600 international applications, works chosen for their resistance to easy categorisation, their originality, visual rigour, and an uncompromising approach to the form. Installed across the old marble factory by Parikia’s yacht harbour, the exhibition runs until the end of September, with prize winners announced in mid-September. Ahead of the announcement, we catch up with each of the eleven shortlisted artists and collectives.
Bobbi Cameron works across sound installation and performance. for the first words of a dreamworld, her debut moving image work, draws on conversations with her grandfather and her own Celtic shamanic practice to explore dementia as a form of time travel.
Could you describe your work featuring in the Prize, and how it sits in relation to your practice more broadly?
for the first words of a dreamworld was inspired by conversations with my grandfather, for whom I was a primary carer for many years. In caring for him, I came to understand his experience of dementia to be one of time travel. I began to think about this in comparison to my own Celtic shamanic practice and how this is also an experience of time travel. And so, this film is a deep exploration of what it means to travel, communicate and exist in multiple experiences of time.
Whilst I have been exploring concepts of time and spiritual practice within my work for some time, this is my debut film work. I have been working with sound installations for many years. In making this work, I developed the score first, with sound designer Richy Carey, and then shot to the score.
What is your relationship to the moving image as a medium; when did it enter your practice, and what does it let you do that other mediums don't?
I worked as a producer of film and moving image for over a decade before working with moving image in my own practice. During this time I had been working in sound installation and performance in my own work. for the first words of a dreamworld is my debut moving image work as a director and really allowed me to bring together all of the mediums I'd been working with for many years in different capacities. Moving image has given me a new language for making, and I'm really excited to be able to push it further in the next work I am developing.
Some people use "experimental" to mean formally unconventional, others to mean something closer to research or inquiry. Which is closer to how you're using video here?
My understanding of experimental film is one that exists outside of conventional formats. Some of the ways this film does this is through its non-linear narrative, its experimentations with in-camera double exposures on 16mm film, and the immersive and disorientating use of sound.
What would you like visitors to experience when spending time with your work?
I would like visitors to be taken away, carried off somewhere outside the gallery, far away from their bodies when experiencing this film. It should be their own experience of time travel.
What has the support from FluxusMuseum made possible, for this piece specifically or for your practice more broadly?
The support from FluxusMuseum meant that I was able to make a new version of this work that would never have otherwise existed. It allowed me to push this work further and really lean into the sound, making a new version for headphones. It also allowed me to show work in Greece for the first time, and to be able to travel to Paros to experience it. Thank you!
What else are you working on at the moment?
I am developing a new moving image work: a Hebridean island exploration of devotion.
Bobbi Cameron is an artist and energy worker based on the Isle of Seil, off the west coast of Scotland.