The Distance Between Here and There (Is Further Than It Seems)
- Date: 2011
- Medium: Digital Video (iPhone 3Gs photography, iOS GarageBand audio)
- Format: UHD digital video file, color, sound
- Duration: 58 sec.
[catalog entry]
The Distance Between Here and There (Is Further Than It Seems) is a minimalist meditation on longing, illusion, and impermanence. In the sweltering heat of the artist’s studio, a malfunctioning air conditioner became an unlikely focal point. Ice formed along its exterior—a crystalline promise of relief that never arrived. This quiet irony revealed a deeper emotional truth: the things we desire most often appear just within reach, yet remain unattainable.
The film captures this cycle with a single, fixed shot, observing ice as it slowly emerges and melts across the AC grill. Light flickers over the surface in rhythmic patterns, like breath or pulse, echoing the fleeting nature of hope and memory. Each droplet becomes a tiny elegy—vanishing before it can be held. The stillness of the frame, combined with the slow, silent motion within it, invites a contemplative gaze, turning a mundane surface into a visual poem about the space between yearning and fulfillment.
The piece was created using early mobile technology: time-lapse software on an iPhone 3Gs captured the visual sequence by leveraging the phone’s still photography capabilities, while the soundtrack—a single track composition—was produced using the first version of GarageBand for iOS. The finished piece was later upscaled to 4K using specialized software, allowing the time-lapse footage to hold its presence on high-resolution displays while retaining the subtle textures of its original capture.
Film still from the video piece The Distance Between Here and There (Is Further Than It Seems).
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