Daniel Crooks: The Subtle Knife
Daniel Crooks
The Subtle Knife, 2016
Digital video 1080p 24, colour, stereo, 8:23 mins © Daniel Crooks
Image courtesy of the artist & Anna Schwartz Gallery
In The Subtle Knife, Daniel Crooks took us on a contemplative journey through time and space. Moving slowly down a never-ending train track, the scenery disappeared into a series of constantly receding frames, forming a surreal landscape of alternate realms and infinitely expanding possibilities. As the camera panned backwards on a course that smoothly shifted between abandoned interiors and empty railway lines, an infinite chain of mirrored portals shrunk along the tracks in the rear-view.
These spectral shapes punctured the shifting horizon evoked the concept of the ‘subtle knife’ – the blade from author Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series that can tease apart the fabric of space and time, cutting new paths into alternate universes. The work also harkened back to the phantom ride films of the 1890s and early 1900s, in which a camera strapped to the front of a vehicle filmed the tracks and scenery ahead while the vehicle itself was left unseen. Crooks captured the perfectly constant tracking shots by using a custom-developed motion control system, painstakingly stitched together in post-production to become a seamless journey through a composite world.
About the Artist
Daniel Crooks works predominantly in video, photography and sculpture. He is best known for his digital video and photographic works that capture and alter time and motion. Crooks manipulates digital imagery and footage as though it were a physical material. He breaks time down, frame by frame. The resulting works expand our sense of temporality by manipulating digital ‘time slices’ that are normally imperceptible to the human eye.
Crooks’ works are in notable public collections, including, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; M+ / Museum of Visual Culture, Hong Kong; Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne; Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the Chartwell Collection, Auckland