Seven Days

1974
Country: UK
Duration: 19 mins
Colour,
Sound: opt
Available Format/s: 16mm / BluRay / HD Digital file
Original Format: 16mm

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The location for this film is by a small stream on the northern slopes of Mount Carningly in south-west Wales. The seven days were shot consecutively and appear in that same order. Each days starts at the time of local sunrise and ends at the time of local sunset. One frame was taken every ten seconds throughout the film. The camera was mounted on an Equatorial Stand which is piece of equipment used by astronomers to track the stars. In order to remain stationary in relation to the star field the mounting is aligned with the Earths axis and rotates about its own axis approximately once every 24 hours.
Rotating at the same earth speed as the earth, the camera is always pointing at either its own shadow or at the sun. Selection of image, (sky or earth, sun or shadow), was controlled by the extent of cloud coverage, i.e. whether the sun was in or out. If the sun was out the camera was turned towards its own shadow, if it was in the camera was turned towards the sun. A rifle microphone was used to sample sound every two hours. These samples were later cut to correspond, both in space and time, to the image on the screen.

More works by Chris Welsby

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