RACHEL BARTON BERNICE OH NO
DISTANT LIGHT
(FILM)
Why did you decide to make this work?
There are a few reasons as to why I created this piece; firstly through out my life I have seen a lot of mental illness from one thing to another, observing people in public and personal experiences with family members. I have noticed that there is a strong connection with the abuse of drink and drugs with people who suffer
with a mental illness or people who are trying to escape or numb what is actually troubling them.
We’re all a little bit mad it’s just that some of us are better at controlling it than others. In a nut shell Im describing the human condition! It is very easy to become an outcast in society and it’s very easy to end up alone and when this happens people adapt they find solace in the animate or they enter a world that merely exists in the own heads. We all have the ability to adapt whether it’s to a new job, loneliness or even prison it’s all a means of survival. So with all these aspects in mind Bernice’s character was created. Your work shows a powerful and disturbing balance between a sort of artificial amateurism and at the same time extreme attention to details; objects, dresses are strictly selected by colour in a cinematographic manner. How do you achieve this balance?
Rachel Barton
This film was shot in my own house, all the objects selected we’re from around my home, its funny how these ordinary everyday objects combined represented the weirdness of Bernice’s character. It’s made to look like an amateur
documentary about this woman Bernice where in actually fact it’s not a documentary she’s just insane. I carefully selected the outfit and objects to show a disturbing yet comforting sense of being stuck in a time warp. A disturbing essence was created with the juxtaposition of Bernice’s alter ego.
The technical side of the film is simple for example it was filmed in one continuous shot and from one angle and was set in my own kitchen. The script was off the cuff I didn’t have any thing until I started filming. All of these aspects without a doubt help with the amateur feel of the film. What in your opinion defines a work of art?
A work of art can be a lot of things without stating the obvious. In my opinion a work of art pleases and repulses the senses, it deals with the world that we live in today, it’s our past, present or future, it can make you laugh, cry, angry or even bored. Art can be the intelligent placing of objects projecting subliminal messages. Art can tell a story of the meaningfulness of naked existence. It all depends what I get from it.
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