YOU’VE GONE

Video Performance commissioned by GMCA: Find out more: https://gmcovidcommissions.com

'YOU'VE GONE' was created at my Nanna's archaic, fold-out, dining table and documents the isolation of locking-down alone for 2 months during the Covid-19 pandemic. My Nanna died just before everything went wrong, in YOU'VE GONE I'm living alone in a house surrounded by her belongings whilst attempting to stay connected for work and pleasure using video chats, filling space and staying safe/alert. I use multiple versions of myself to communicate the absurdity of modern social connectivity with the 'bad connection' as a representation of loss, frustration and creativity. 

Below the video are content warnings, and a written Visual and audio description of the video.
Here is a link to the online audio recording of the visual and audio description:  https://soundcloud.com/user-844173707-316747803/youve-gone-descriptionwav

Content warnings:

  • Overlapping audio of repetitive phrases referencing loss and grief.


  • Overlapping audio of throat/coughing sounds


  • Visual and audio reference to vomiting including pulling objects out of the mouth and spitting out liquid.


  • Layered imagery and sound with fast paced cutting between images in some sec- tions to be intentionally overwhelming.


    Visual description of YOU’VE GONE:

    Here is a written description of the visuals in YOU’VE GONE:

    There is one performer in the video, a Woman in her late 20s, wearing a white, buttoned shirt with a high neck-line. The woman is Dual heritage with Black Caribbean and White British heritage. Her hair is thick, black and below shoulder length. She wears her hair in different styles throughout the video to symbolise different personal perspectives of her own experience of grief and isolation. The hair styles include two plaits, hair-down and hair in a bun at the back of the head. All performance in the video takes place as a one- sided ‘ ̃Zoom’ video-call, against a black background or at the dining table in the per- formers home. The video uses 3 different visual sections and all of these overlap to be intentionally visually overwhelming and take the form of a recorded screen effect as if on a laptop but jolty and fragmented.

    The video starts with a black background and glowing effect with bold and jarring colours of red, pink, light blue and fluorescent green shadow for the words ‘YOU’VE GONE’ which flicker quickly and change to ‘YOU’VE FROZEN,’over the top of audio which is overlapping the spoken versions of the phrases. The first image is introduced at the end of the text using the typical layout of an online video call using ‘Zoom’ with multiple im- ages of the performer in a grid sat looking into the camera performing various actions connected to waiting for somebody to speak, difficulties in hearing the other person, be- ing bored, feeling disconnected, poor signal and listening carefully. 10 versions of the artist performing these different persons are visible on the screen at the same time with different hairstyles, all dressed in an identical, white shirt, with a desktop wallpaper in the background which is an image of golden aluminium foil on grass. In the background ofthe versions of the performer are more multiples of her, in some areas it seems as if she has 4 eyes and two heads but the footage is grainy. There are also curled sausage shapes in the colours red, green and gold floating around the heads of the artist created using clay to represent the shapes of the spaces in the face and hands.

    The video now cuts to the performer alone pulling black material out of her mouth which is edited with the images of the ceramic shapes so they look as if they are inside her mouth mimicking the act of vomiting. We are introduced to the next section with a series of visual text in the same bold colourful style as earlier in red, pink, light blue and fluores- cent green shadow including ‘YOU’VE GONE, YOU’VE FROZEN and ‘I CAN’T HEAR YOU.’

    The performer is now sat at a table with two other versions of herself with different hair styles, two plaits. hair down and hair up in a bun to the back of the head. The first ‘video- chat’ image with the 10 personas is in the background behind them as if a wallpaper or backdrop. On the table closer to the camera is an arrangement of fruit, kitchenware, wa- ter, wine and two long white, lit candles reminiscent of a renaissance still life painting and as if a dinner is being hosted. All 3 versions of the performer face the camera and this is edited as if they are all sat at the table together facing you. The performer is performing different actions connected to boredom, isolation, grief and bodily fluids including eating in an exaggerated way, spitting out water, leaning on the table, holding her breath, sigh- ing, adorning her body with the ceramic objects also seen in the background. This sec- tion of the video is accompanied by an overlapping soundtrack of voices using phrases from the text, coughing sounds, mouth sounds, sighing, throat clearing. The video builds into many layers including the floating red, green and gold curled, sausage shapes, the fluorescent shadowed text, the 10 ‘Video call’ personas and the 3 versions of the per- former sat at the table performing actions. This ends abruptly with credits appearing over the image, reading ‘YOU’VE GONE, created by Amy Lawrence,’ after this is a moment of darkness in which we only hear the sound of the performers speech.

Audio description:

You can listen to the audio description here: https://soundcloud.com/

user-844173707-316747803/youve-gone-descriptionwav

Here is a written version of the description of the audio in the video:

The audio of ‘YOU’VE GONE’ uses overlapping speech of short phrases layered with dif- ferent mouth and throat sounds. The main part of the soundtrack is a repeated script which is muffled in some sections. The script is read by the performer and uses the phrases: ‘You've gone, I can’t hear you, you’ve frozen, I can’t see you,’ repeatedly in two overlapping tracks. In one of these the performer sounds as if you are listening to her

through the phone, it is slightly muffled and the ends of the words are clipped. The second track is clear and not muffled, the two tracks overlap and are a similar loudness, coming in and out of the soundtrack, with the most layered sections during the sections where the performer is sat at the table. Alongside this are building bodily sounds of ex- pressing and ingesting air, fluid, objects and food in and out of the mouth. These sounds are overlapped with the speech and increase in pace and frequency moving towards the middle of the video and include coughing sounds (also at the very start,) vomiting sounds, sighing, throat clearing, sniffing and mouth rhythm sounds alongside some humming of a piece of song by Frank Ocean - Nikes. The soundtrack for this video is intentionally left roughly edited in parts to compliment the visuals which have moments of missing inform- ation and ambiguity.

For further information or comments on how this information may be improved please contact me

Special thanks to Juliet Davis.