Domus
Site-Specific Video Installation (Video Vidi Visum*)
All of us are deaf to the sounds of the past. Physical remains, ruins, artefacts, skeletal relics serve as visible clues of former times, but strain as we might we are incapable of hearing the voices of a long-lost household; the clinking of cups, the sounds of children playing in the courtyard… Life itself ‐ breath and movement ‐ are gone.
Sound serves as a reminder of the transience of experience, and of existence: ephemeral, rising and fading away without a trace.
Commissioned by PVA MediaLab and Dorset County Council, Domus is a site-specific video installation, a moving-image, multiple projection piece that lit up the site of Dorchester’s ancient Roman Town House, integrating video projections into the site’s unique architecture with its ancient Roman mosaics, and transforming its contemporary glass façade into a reflective, storytelling hall of mirrors.
This site-specific video installation piece was created with the participation of deaf people in the local community, who used moving-image to engage with and unearth stories hidden within the 2000-year-old archaeological site. Could the pacing of feet, sixteen hundred years ago or more, across the mosaicked floor of a Dorchester town house be re-animated? Could the sounds of conversation held at the dinner table be heard again across the centuries?
*Latin: “to observe, understand, comprehend.”
