17m:19s:00f is a video piece I made during a period of research on the duration, beginnings, ends and mid points of events.
The film’s split-screen form depicts the duration of my late father’s life, with each frame of video, projected at 25fps, representing a single day of his 72 years; on one side, aided by 2 time-codes, we see life progressing and on the other, we see it running out.
The seemingly abstract colour cycle on screen is actually made of extreme close-ups of his handed-down photographic darkroom equipment and on the sound track we hear his home-made photo-processing timing tape, as well as a little singing. The objects are arranged according to the way in which the Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro used colour to represent different periods of a life- birth, education, maturity etc., in the film The Last Emperor.
