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Running and Standing, Emma Hart & Melanie Stidolph, Installation View, 2010
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Running and Standing, Emma Hart & Melanie Stidolph, Installation View, 2010
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Emma Hart, Chasing Animals (Series One) 2007 - 2009,
An ongoing collection of video attempts to creep up on an animal, try and capture it looking at me,
then run at it with the video camera
Videoinstallation with 5 wooden plinths, 5 Sony Cubes,   5
Quicktime (or Mpg2) files on USB key as Master copy, 5 DVD playing copies,
copyright limited to personal use and/or preservation only , Edition of 3+2AP
Chasing Horses - 1 min 55 sec looped
Chasing Sheep - 2 min 1 sec looped
Chasing Rabbits - 1 min 22 sec looped
Chasing Geese - 1 min 46 sec looped
Chasing Gulls - 1 min 25 sec looped
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Melanie Stidolph, Dancing Cow, C- print, 175 x 130 cm, framed
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Emma Hart, Chasing Animals (Series One) 2007 - 2009,
An ongoing collection of video attempts to creep up on an animal, try and capture it looking at me,
then run at it with the video camera
Chasing Horses - 1 min 55 sec looped, Videostill
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Running and Standing

Emma Hart &Melanie Stidolph
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For Running and Standing Emma Hart and Melanie Stidolph contributed performative video pieces and large scale photographs with an unexpected take on the pastoral landscape. 'Running and Standing' is not a conventional two-person show.   It was conceived by Hart and Stidolph as a visual dialogue on a common theme and shows diverging approaches to making work; contemplation and action, which can be used to capture it. The pastoral, although often associated with serenity originally stems from the notion of working the land and rearing animals. A common motive in iconography, Hart and Stidolph nevertheless manage to bring their own unique perspectives to it.   Both artists question the accuracy of the camera and both attempt to push the boundaries of representation through the lens.

Emma Hart's ongoing series Chasing Animals makes a point of the fact that the artist's unconcealed presence behind the camera and her actions have an influence on the scene she is capturing.   Hart creeps up on animals, but once they have seen her, instead of remaining still and utilising a zoom to get closer to the horses, sheep or geese, Hart runs towards them with a handheld video camera. Hart is trying to physically 'zoom' herself into the vicinity of the animals yet the act of running with the camera, scares the animals and they bolt.   The camera records the action it has created. The videos Chasing Animals do not present an objective documentation of nature, but record the active interference of the artist's camera with natural behaviour. The viewer experiences the works subjectively. We cannot see Hart, but we sense what she experiences through the resulting images and sound.   We no longer see the iconic landscape but become hunters of a perfect image or the animals themselves. Instead of a contemplative representation of the pastoral, the video series becomes a portal to the experience of being outdoors and effecting a change. So whilst Emma Hart's way of filming is an interference which causes a reaction from the animals, it perplexingly leads the viewer towards a sensation of the real, rather than the spectacle of the reality.

Melanie Stidolph works in the opposite way. Remaining still, unobtrusive and largely undetected she utilises a medium format camera to 'portray' animals. Stidolph records moments where the animal acts naturally without being aware of her presence. She relies on her lens to bring the image closer. Instead of relying on an existing iconography of landscape, she records and edits moments, which are closest in authenticity to nature itself.   On occasions those moments border on the grotesque, defying the conventions of pictorial language. In Hare the said animal is the central focus of the image, however most of the image represents shrubbery and only a small area reveals the hare of the title.   The work truthfully represents, yet also compresses the image information into a two-dimensional impression of an overwhelming pattern within which the hare is just a small variation. Untitled (Cow ) shows an animal in motion, looking disproportionate due its own movement. The image records a truthful moment, yet it is not a conventional documentary image. This small uncomfortable shift is the point, where Stidolph allows the camera to record a curious slippage, which is as authentic as it is noteworthy .

Running and Standing examines whether these two actions are opposed or whether they could lead to the same result theoretically, despite being aesthetically divergent.   The exhibition brings into the foreground the processes of making art and suggests that the camera is not neutral and that its limitations result in media specific compositions.   At the same time both artist attempt to reach beyond the constraints of the lens.   The visual result of these examinations is a series of works, which bring a refreshing conceptual touch to a genre whilst at the same time celebrating the beauty of wildlife and nature.