Amy Hicks

Suspended Series, 2005-2006, 16mm to digital video, color, sound.

Suspended Series is a four-piece rumination on commuting, perception, and propulsion. Each track transforms an ordinary drive over a bridge into rhythmic, hypnotic experiences that conjure up scientific diagrams, images of flight, the future, and the cosmos. Playing like an old 45 record, these analog / digital combinations skip and crackle through time slipping between present and future, image and imagination, obfuscation and revelation.

In Suspended, I drive back and forth repeatedly across four bay area bridges. The mundane drive evokes a meditative and hallucinatory state. By filming this process I attempt to capture these conditions. I work the audio and textured surfaces in layers to evoke a physical manifestation of the visions stemming from repetition. While giving weight to these ethereal conditions I confront the actual dullness of traffic—car, asphalt, stop and go bumper to bumper. The architecture of each bridge determines the camera angle and the characteristics of the vision: #1—San Mateo Bridge—sky, #2—San Francisco Bay Bridge—flight, #3—Dumbarton Bridge—horizon and velocity, and #4—Golden Gate Bridge—suspension.