16 Four
Youth and Young Men
Currently in production
Five-channel installation: 16mm | silent | 2024
All processes tend toward decay and disintegration.
A site-specific study of how a series of images deteriorates over months and an ethnographic recreation of both family and environmental history. Youth and Young Men utilizes four separate visual scenarios across one shared childhood.
Currently in production / 2024
Location Notes
The filmed image and burial location are separate locations within central Kentucky.
The film is buried on a small property in central Kentucky where my brother and I grew up. The location is unspectacular within a wider historical context yet significant in a familial one.
Methodology
One 16mm print (100 feet, two originals made), buried within the property for twenty-four days. The print was unearthed, duplicated, and then placed back in the ground for twelve day increments. After each set of days, the print would be duplicated and reburied. After sixty days, a documentation of decay exists, from an unaltered artifact in channel one to an almost completely deteriorated frame in channel five.
Soil samples were taken from the exact location of the burial and tested for pH level, moisture, and temperature. These records were updated at each excavation and burial. Data was kept of location temperature and precipitation levels.
Original project design