Kate Murphy
Location Streetvision screens on all Sydney city train station platforms
Date 21- 24 October 2005
Title Leaving Together

Kate Murphy presented a tender tableau of four video works that juxtapose footage set in an intimate suburban household with the frantic and anonymous environment of the commuter. The camera shifts between the observations of the director and the hand held view of the two characters, the 90-year-old grandfather and 86-year-old grandmother of the artist, as they move through the house they have occupied together for 70 years. This work refers to the desire to record family history and lineage, the hope for remembrance, and the impulse to archive what is ultimately fleeting- our corporeal experience of time.

Murphy’s lo-fi but compelling production highlights the fragility within the methods and means of documentation, as she continues to draw our attention to the processes of recording both fact and fiction. In this instance, however we are paradoxically presented with confrontational images that reveal deeply rooted truths. As we stare into the eyes of another, we are immediately struck by a sense of estrangement and the terrifying reality that we are in fact alone in our individual experiences and interpretations of life. Ultimately we can only ever speculate about the 'view' of another, even those that we closely travel with. Presenting her aged subjects in conspicuous youth affiliated backpacks; the works culminate in the anti-climatic action of counting down to leaving. Anticipation of the next train can also be seen as a profound parallel to the anguish of preparing for and enduring the human rites of passage and the futility of a life governed by time and inevitable death.

Biography

Kate Murphy adopts a documentary aesthetic and uses the camera almost purely as observer, allowing the truth of her chosen subject or environment to unfold naturally through what could be termed social documentary, or video portraiture. It is this pervading truth and authenticity which make her artworks such compulsive viewing. Interrogating the boundaries of public and private, the poignancy and ingenuity of Murphy’s filmic approach is refreshing in an age where the recording of the ‘real’ infiltrates every aspect of our lives, from surveillance cameras to reality tv.

Image credit Amanda Williams

© Kate Murphy