Anna Hawkins

Love

Love explores the shapeshifting nature of language on the internet. In the video, images extracted from Instagram—all found under #love—are transformed and integrated with original footage shot by the artist. #love is the most used hashtag on Instagram and currently there are over 2 billion posts tagged in this way. Connecting seemingly disparate images, Love tries to understand and link all of the possible associations of a given word at a single moment in time through narrative. A voiceless narrator—a loose personification of the Instagram platform or perhaps even the internet itself—addresses the viewer in the form of a love letter.

Blue Light Blue

Blue Light Blue is a film and video work that uses the blue light emitted from the backlit LED screens of cellphones, tablets and laptops as a formal element, an experimental narrative device, and a primary material. The work draws aesthetic inspiration from horror films and the cinematic device of “day for night”—a technique used throughout the history of film where footage shot during daylight is processed with a strong blue tint so that it reads as nighttime. Throughout Blue Light Blue, the notions of day and night are confused and the protected, intimate space of the bedroom is transgressed. Blue light is cast as the antagonist in a pseudo horror film where screens masquerade as mirrors or windows or light sources, all the while surveilling us as we gaze into their simulated depths.

Blue Light Blue

Blue Light Blue is a film and video work that uses the blue light emitted from the backlit LED screens of cellphones, tablets and laptops as a formal element, an experimental narrative device, and a primary material. The work draws aesthetic inspiration from horror films and the cinematic device of “day for night”—a technique used throughout the history of film where footage shot during daylight is processed with a strong blue tint so that it reads as nighttime. Throughout Blue Light Blue, the notions of day and night are confused and the protected, intimate space of the bedroom is transgressed. Blue light is cast as the antagonist in a pseudo horror film where screens masquerade as mirrors or windows or light sources, all the while surveilling us as we gaze into their simulated depths.