I was sitting having coffee in a local cafe in Corfu Town in one it’s the main streets. A sudden recognition of the association of the view with two of Renoir’s famous paintings. At the time I could not single one of them out but I can remember recalling aspects of both paintings. With the images of those painting in mind, framing the view followed quickly, so that as much of the paintings content association could be retained in memory and included in the video. It was recognised at the time that this process would only provide partial associations, a kind of impression of an impression but in the medium of video.
Filming handheld in continuous duration was used in the direct observation of families of people who turned out to have lunch in the cafe. However, unknown to me at the beginning of filming was the seating of two women who arrived for lunch and sat right in front of me and the camera. I regarded this to be fortuitous and I continued filming the situation without any pause. As it happened, this turned out to provide a very good close up of the movement of the women’s head and of the straw hat she was wearing. This further strengthened and added an extra and enhanced association with the two Renoir painting. These kind of magical events sometimes occur when working with time and duration in this way!
