Recall Film
Recall film invokes memories stored in fragments of aged objects collected and investigated by the artist. Kubisa uses a confocal laser microscope to extract the artwork from an objects' fragment, looking for florescence absorbed over time. The film triggers the viewers' memory and experiences which is released through the artworks, film scenes, film archives and sound. The score responds to the objects' absorbed sounds and portrays the objects' historical time frames. The investigation is both historic and personal ranging from 1545 to 20th century.
“Each sample has an inherent memory that my ‘stolen’ fragment contains. This memory is in its physical structure and worn influences of time. Those fragments, touched by the original owner, have absorbed their own story ready to be released through these processes…” - Seran Kubisa
Recall is the first film by the artist and colourist Seran Kubisa. Lasting forty four minutes it marks a culmination of her in depth forensic and scientific investigations created during her four year public art project (Arts Council England Award for Innovation) with a meditation on it’s central themes of memory, history and heritage.
Kubisa, who trained as a fine artist, has not used the medium of film as a form of painting by proxy but through skilful editing, sequences of film, the use of archive material and a commissioned musical score has performed the formidable task of transforming the project’s artwork into cinema.
SK “Recall shares my deep connectivity to the object’s life and meaning, felt and understood on a human emotional level, I have taken fragments from objects and unlocked their essence to connect with the resonance of those histories and human experiences that are embroiled within it. Recall allows a journey of connectivity back to these experiences and takes you through moments in time.
It has been my quest to locate and find aged artefacts since I discovered that older fragments from objects contained fluorescence and when analysed with a Confocal laser Microscope produced stunning images – a connection I had discovered in 2002 when Artist in Residence at the School of Biological Sciences at Southampton University.
In each experiment I set the lasers and lenses with awareness of the object’s story contained in the fragment. This information about the object is also reflected when selecting the colour and compositional value. I am using this state of the art science equipment as my artist tool and as a colourist selecting the laser settings is similar to choosing colour in my fine art practice. Each scientific analysis takes a day to complete into an artwork, I have completed nearly 300 experiments to date.”