Sam Holden -Sam Holden
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Once More With Feeling
(Mixed-media installation. 2008)







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Artist Statement

Images and Audio

Installation View



















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‘The ritual of his veiled accusations, my denials, and our eventual reconciliations had the force of re-enactment from the first. Whether I was screaming profanity or cooing reassurance, the words I spoke seemed to come from a script as old as the hills, and I felt like a character in a farce; feasting on the rubbish heap of dead expressions.’
Siri Hustvedt, The Blindfold, (W. W. Norton & Company: New York, 1993), p.198

The majority of films, no matter what their budget, background or intended audience, contain aesthetic, cultural or psychological schemata. Whether stereotype, archetype or simple everyday occurence, these schemata have become essential shorthand for setting a scene or introducing a character. As viewers, they’re so familiar to us that we can often guess the next line of dialogue, predict a turn of events or forecast a protagonist’s reaction to an incident that is yet to occur.

In certain situations, maybe due to heightened emotion or stress, do we not instinctively draw upon imagery we’ve absorbed from film or television to determine our response rather than attempting to articulate how we actually feel? Our image-repertoire is brimming with examples of a first kiss, acrimonious break-up or vivid nightmare (absorbed from film and television), so, when actually experiencing such events, is it not easier (and perhaps preferable) to unconsciously fall into a stereotypical role rather than exert the emotional energy needed to tread our own furrow?

With ‘Once More With Feeling’ I aim to explore the relationship between firsthand and received experience by asking subjects to visually respond to a number of hypothetical situations.

Participants are invited into a photobooth where various hypothetical scenarios play through the speakers. After each explanation subjects are prompted to ‘freeze’, holding the expression that encapsulates their imagined reaction, whilst the camera’s shutter is released (automatically using image-capture software). Each ‘freeze frame’ is immediately relayed to a projector in an adjacent room to be viewed independently of the creation process. The images, created in response to an imagined scenario will potentially evoke a very similar scenario for the viewer, continuing the cycle of schematic imagery.

Sam Holden © 2008