Lauren Healey

Unit is a looped video installation constructed from medium format photographs taken of empty stock rooms in an unused retail unit.

A Holga camera was used to photograph the empty rooms and corridors of the shopping unit. The black & white film was then hand-processed in an old developing tank, and the negatives scanned and reassembled as a video.

The creases and stains on stills are due to the film coming away from the spool during the chemical process; the dust and scratch marks a result of the film deliberately being left on the floor in spaces where photographs had been taken.

The resulting piece thus records the space in several ways: there is a visual image, the outcome of which is subject to decisions regarding shot set up, exposure, film and camera & developing tank; the affect of the equipment and materials upon the image is apparent in the creased film and vignetting; the physical marks left by dirt on the floor of the space have left their residue in the scratches which flicker across the screen.

The piece was originally shown projected on a sheet of paper pinned to a freestanding grey wall.

Unit was created for ‘Response: A Rural / Urban Conversation’, a two-part off-site project between Visual Arts in Rural Communities, (VARC), Northumberland and artists based at the NewBridge Project, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.