Human Download

In early 2009, I was invited to exhibit at Holy Trinity Church in the heart of Leeds city centre as part of a group show on the theme 'Born'. Interpreting this in my usual vein of seeking to explore the deepest essences of what it means to be alive - to have been born - as a human being, I began considering how humanity might appear from the outside, and my thoughts immediately turned to a recent digital work And You Cannot Know Me By My Flesh Alone which addressed in some ways the same theme. I decided to have the film expand on this piece.

Human Download is thus an eight minute film which seeks to use a succession of rapidly changing images of drawings, photographs and excerpts from the digital piece to define and explore the totality of human experience in the shortest amount of time. The film's imagery hints at the (admittedly rather strange) premise that some kind of extraterrestrial being seeks to 'download' an experience of humanity and that this film has been made for that purpose. Each image is suffused with red, suggestive of the blood which all of humanity has in common. At no point throughout the film is any legible text seen to guide the viewer: we thus join the hypothetical alien in downloading the information, which proceeds faster than conscious memory or perception is able to process - approximately 0.8 seconds per screen. The film is thus, to a certain extent, perceived more unconsciously than consciously.

Over 500 images have been produced for this film, including several short animations, and the soundtrack is an extended version of Hey Little Avatar, produced under my nom de musique of Abando, the original of which can be heard via the links.

A limited edition DVD of this film is now available at the SHOP
Click on the link below to view the film (also read the note below the link)

Note - The rapid-fire nature of the imagery means that this film may be unsuitable for some people with epilepsy or migraines. Each image is sustained for one second on the screen, which is much longer than strobe lighting or flash photography, but the sustained nature of this rapid succession may present a small risk to some viewers.