Mates, Extras, Trophies and Trespassers
Part of a series of videos focused on the alteration of action and memory in backyard behavior, Mates, Extras, Trophies and Trespassers (2011) uses footage uploaded by hunters to Youtube from their motion sensor scouting cameras.
Since the preseason hunter has replaced himself with a camera, his memory of the forest becomes more akin to a trapper, that of baiting and retrieving. Rather than scouting in the present, his experience of what happens in the forest culminates when he inserts his SD card into his computer. What he finds are not the natural behaviors of animals, but rather the set up (bait/scent) he has created, and interaction with the singular frame of his camera. Animals (and sometimes people) are aware of the camera, its sounds, its infrared light, and its scent. In essence, the hunter watches his own construction of the forest though the lenses of his equipment, and remembers it in this way. The animal he is waiting for is aware of human presence and awkwardly accepts it, whether the urges drawing it there are sexual or nutritional.
Not content to keep these recordings to himself, the hunter posts compilations of photos and videos onto Youtube. While video is often tolerated in its relatively pure state, the photograph is treated as inferior. More often than not the photo slide show is given a makeover with stars, cubes, page curls, and various types of intrusive visual transitions before being exported. These photographs are then paired with songs ranging from country, metal, and hip-hop, to classical music. In both cases, the perpetual memory of the forest is now a cultural one.
Since the preseason hunter has replaced himself with a camera, his memory of the forest becomes more akin to a trapper, that of baiting and retrieving. Rather than scouting in the present, his experience of what happens in the forest culminates when he inserts his SD card into his computer. What he finds are not the natural behaviors of animals, but rather the set up (bait/scent) he has created, and interaction with the singular frame of his camera. Animals (and sometimes people) are aware of the camera, its sounds, its infrared light, and its scent. In essence, the hunter watches his own construction of the forest though the lenses of his equipment, and remembers it in this way. The animal he is waiting for is aware of human presence and awkwardly accepts it, whether the urges drawing it there are sexual or nutritional.
Not content to keep these recordings to himself, the hunter posts compilations of photos and videos onto Youtube. While video is often tolerated in its relatively pure state, the photograph is treated as inferior. More often than not the photo slide show is given a makeover with stars, cubes, page curls, and various types of intrusive visual transitions before being exported. These photographs are then paired with songs ranging from country, metal, and hip-hop, to classical music. In both cases, the perpetual memory of the forest is now a cultural one.
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