Remembering as much as I could from Van Gogh’s painting I swiftly framed the old building with its two floors and yellow framed arches. There was the added opportunity of framing the view in a direct classical and formal way following the structure and layout of the buildings with their foreground of gardens and centrally placed fountain.
The film allows for a reflection on Van Gogh’s life and his stay at the Old Hospital during this productive but traumatic period of his stay in Arles. The flowing fountain provided a meditative sound track as well as standing as a metaphor for the flowing continuity and renewal of life force. I found that the fountain’s pond movement with its paper debris which flowed in a clockwise direction, provided a visual and cyclic indicator of time, almost like the movements of the minute hand on a clock. Unexpectedly two people enter and leave the frame walking from left to right together with the appearance of a photographer taking photographs on the upper floor opposite. This gave me the idea of using film loops, repetition, duration and the slowing of film time which in one way could be regarded as analogous to the repetitive rhythms and monotony of daily life for a patient confined to stay in the hospital. It also presented the possibility of providing a reflexive and phenomenological experience for the viewer.
