Fracas
"Fracas" is a social comment on missing children. It tries to question our reactions and actions towards an individual's misleading image and its appeal for help in a mundane setting.
The image of the smiling child resting under the heading "missing" is an uncomfortable and awkward contradiction. The video uses this sense of contradiction with its relationship of its spelling bee audio with its missing children portraits/video.
By using this false association the viewer must become an active participant within the video. The association is uncanny and the viewer is left uncertain. It also causes the viewer to be unable to perceive the image in its entirety as it is necessary for her/him to discover the seperate elements and relations that elude them at the heart of an unclear image.
"Fracas" ultimately is the experience of memory on many different levels. It utilizes the still image of children with minimal digital alteration. The photograph itself will always represent the past and therefore the memory of the person it captures.
The audio is of the National Spelling Bee where children must exercise their skills and memory to correctly spell a word. It is only when the camera zooms out from the powerful gaze of smiling children and lets the viewer in, the intention of "Fracas" is revealed.
A third memory now exists this time in the viewer as she/he questions the origins and possible connections of the words and images that have graced them moments ago.
