70˚N/50˚N : essay film to installation

70˚N/50˚N Essay Film to Installation is a studio-based research project that outlines the tenets of the Essay Film and identifies the form's narrative characteristics and production techniques with the understanding that this knowledge will create a transformative methodology that expands and transfers these characteristics and techniques to the production of a contemporary video installation work. The resulting knowledge will challenge and expand notions of the Essay Film and video installation in form, format and narrative structure. This adaptation of the Essay Film form for video installation results in a new form referred to in this exegesis as the 'cinematographic installation essay'. This form has been applied to the video installation 70˚N/50˚N, a multiple screen audio-visual exhibition artwork. 70˚N/50˚N was shot on location in Siberia and in Melbourne. The work is a poetic re-telling of the Ivan Kupala Day ritual. Through a multiple screen installation, 70˚N/5O˚N explores the nature of displacement of the self and meditates on place, belonging and remembrance. This accompanying exegesis provides the basis for the studio-based research to be elaborated upon through discussion, documentation and reflective analysis.