William Hunt
Even as you see me now

UK, 2007, video, 15 min

William Hunt’s endurance-related performances involve a degree of musical performativity played out under some situation of physical duress: hanging upside down, spinning on a turntable and, most recently, under water. Narrative, set up through song, is frustrated by physical restraints, evoking feelings of threat, danger and self-destruction.

For this new commission, Hunt sings a song of rapport whose communication is thwarted by self-imposed physically demanding conditions. These conditions not only disrupt Hunt’s ability to perform but overturn the environment and objects around him, and ultimately disturb the viewer’s understanding of the action.

Even as you see me now is a work intended as a video, rather than video documentation of a performance. It uses the language of cinema and painting to give audiences a more considered experience of effort and physical undertaking.

Even as you see me now was produced by Picture This and is a joint commission between the Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Picture This and South West Screen as part of Recorded Live, a programme of new performance-to-camera moving image works. Recorded Live is supported by Arts Council England Lottery Funding.