Solstice: Neeta Madahar & Miguel d'Oliveira

About

Filmed during the Summer and Winter Solstices in rural England, Neeta Madahar's high definition video installation presents an intimate and immersive encounter with ever-changing midsummer and midwinter skies. Accompanied by an atmospheric orchestral soundtrack, Solstice explores time, memory and the cyclical patterns of nature. Among the more significant annual astronomical phases are the northern and southern solstices, when the Sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky before turning south or north respectively. Each year on 20 or 21 June, we witness the greatest amount of daylight and the shortest night; on 21 or 22 December, we encounter the fewest hours of daylight and the longest stretch of darkness. Solstice was shot in a rural landscape in Wiltshire on the solstices of December 2006 and June 2007. For each film, a fixed camera was pointed at the sky, with Polaris (the North Star) appearing in the centre of the frame. A team of camera operators working shifts then recorded for 24 hours from midnight to midnight, with the camera on time-lapse mode shooting 25 times a minute. Each hour was condensed into a minute of footage, so, in total, the 24 hours of each solstice were captured in 36,000 stills and subsequently translated into a 24-minute film. The films show the daily rotation of the Earth, which creates the appearance of stars circling around the North Star. In the night segments, light trails illustrate the movement of the stars. The films create a visual record of the passage of time; time is no longer abstract - what has occurred seconds, minutes and hours before is fixed in an image, to be experienced simultaneously. Solstice considers the day as both a lived experience and a unit of time defined by celestial changes. Composer Miguel d'Oliveira provides an orchestral soundtrack, to create an immersive environment within the gallery. The impression of time as a compressed or protracted experience is reinforced by the tempo of the various sections of music. Specific instruments, melodies or rhythms are used to evoke the sensation of summer heat or the coldness of a winter night. To heighten the sensory experience, the music is performed by the 22-piece City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.