Glenn Miles
Legacy
My work Legacy explores the issue of the burden of debt created by the current economic crisis, the worst since The Great Depression – ‘kicking the debt can down the road’, for another generation to pick up the tab. Burdening the next generation with the current debt has been described by some as immoral, but by others as a necessity to overcome the current economic crisis.
Portraiture is traditionally considered to be a likeness or representation of a person whereby the face and the expression are usually the key features. Utilising the video-making possibilities of the latest generation of HDSLR cameras, I have combined stills with moving images of young people affected by the economic crisis. The subjects are blurred, partially revealed, in varying states of recognition. I experiment with merging images, with layers and focus, pushing the limits of the image to the point where it is stripped of any possibility of disclosure. Barely recognisable images emerge out of a blurred white void.
I question where one medium ends and another begins, and use this ambiguity as a metaphor for the ‘hidden legacy’ of debt created by the incoherent economics of the current generation that is passing into an undefined future.