Sixty Miniatures exists as a permanent online audiovisual installation, comprising 60 one minute pieces accompanied by short bursts of visual imagery. Each visit is unique – the order of play of the 60 pieces is different each time you enter, keeping the whole hour fluid and immediate as new narratives are created at each sitting.
The piece was imagined as a physical installation that would ideally be housed in a small, pitch-black, quiet space, with a handful of comfortable chairs around a large TV monitor and good quality speakers. This is not flashy art to wow the public with a barrage of loud imagery. It is contemplative, immersive and deeply personal.
Sixty Miniatures attempts to address, in a novel way, the short attention span of our generation: audience members can enter the hour long loop at any time and leave after they have had enough, while experiencing a set of carefully crafted and experiential pieces rather than a static event. There is a tendency, as experienced in the online version and in its public outing at Greenwich University, London, to ‘just stay for one more minute’…
The installation goes against minimalist aesthetics by often cramming ‘too many’ ideas into the one minute format. The dark environment, punctuated by bursts of unnerving visuals, helps create a surreal and intense experience. The work has high production values and is eclectic, accessible and constantly surprising with its colourful and often witty references to pop, classical, and electronic sound worlds. Each miniature is titled at the beginning with an old fashioned font reminiscent of silent movies. These titles add another layer of possible interpretation.
The visual content is created in part with AI as a tool (Runway ML), and combined with homemade vignettes using small found objects and filmed in candlelight on an iPhone. It is deliberately sparse, to not compete with the music for attention, and to create expectation and tension.
Special mention to Ricardo Oliva Alonso for the website assistance, and to Seth Scott-Deuchar, Laurence Crane and Matteo Fargion for the creative input.