The Barn

Film, 2017, 5:00 min

LT Ranch, Lithuania

 

 

The short structural film entitled ‘The Barn’ is a kind of self-portrait, both of the structure itself (using gravity through a pendulum device attached to the barn's trusses) and myself (revealed perched on a ladder launching the filming mechanism). The film was made in Lithuania as part of my contribution to LT Ranch Summer Session 2017, a student workshop organised by LT Ranch Director and Founder Kristina Kotov. Scanning the space in a series of prescribed swinging and spinning movements, the film documents this beautiful traditional barn structure, moved piece by piece from a neighbour's property in 2014-15 by Kotov, Stasys Skliaustis and a small team of dedicated volunteers. The improvised device, using found material including red rope, timber, and a scaffolding pole and fixings, can both swing and spin under its own weight, tracing arcs or spiralling circles through the space. The film exploits the struggle of the two cameras to autofocus, except at the upper ends of each sweeping arc. The two cameras face in opposite directions, giving simultaneous footage revealed by the film's split screen format. At certain points in the film you can read the complex coding system by which each piece of timber was labelled by Kotov prior to being taken apart and reassembled on the new site. The film is an homage to this remarkable resurrection of a redundant structure.