Duncan ROBINSON
The Tracker
2006
video projection

This body of work is about tracking me. It is a departure from my previous work but is the next step in my artistic endeavours as I combine the elements of my artistic history, technical knowledge, stubborn yet gradually relenting refusal to join the digital age with my own immediate story and voyage.

This is the starting point for my story, not for anyone in particular, maybe just for me and my immediate friends and family. They are the ones who know the stories and meanings behind these pictures and why I do what I do and what the consequences of my actions have been. I have delved further into me to release these images because it is the story that I feel like I have to tell. 2005 was a significant year for me for a bunch of reasons and this work is the culmination of that year and its lessons, in hard times and good.

These images are volume two in my life, my personal journey into the world that provided the answers that I had been seeking during volume one. They are taken in airports, trains, planes, on assorted floors, in bedrooms and then eventually back home where I had to put all the answers together. I am now starting volume three.

The experience of tracking is the premise behind this work but the difference is that compared to the historical role of the tracker this is about me tracking me.

This process was difficult and simple all at the same time. The work was deliberately photographed on a poor quality camera on a mobile telephone. The images were then taken back to the analogue realm of the video player as I have always been fascinated by and have an affinity with videotape. The tapes in this exhibition have been previously used and are already part of my past. They have been taped over with this piece and then played over a hundred times to further degrade the image. This part of my process experiments with the videotape, while at the same time, addressing my history and telling my story.