Apparent Time (2024)

Photography and sound are thought together in 'Apparent Time', an 11-minute film that takes as its central subject is a photograph titled, 'Photo 9 - Boat on the spot where Elugelab once stood, now a crater, 1972’ taken in Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, 20 years after the nuclear device ‘Mike’ was detonated there, completely vaporising the island of Elugelab.

Formed from a handful of archival photographs, slides, and postcards, footage of the un-doing of a piece of woven fabric, and the ‘erasure’ of a tattoo the film’s audio includes a sample of the drummer Kenny Clarke playing syncopated beats to create a polyrhythmic sound known as ‘dropping the bomb’.

The film's monologue, which draws on texts by Trinh T. Minh-ha and Paul Virilio, focuses attention on the notion of ‘remoteness’ and ideas of 'ocular reality'.

‘Apparent Time’ is also the act of measuring time by observing the shadows cast on a surface produced by the sun’s rays falling onto an object.