Laura U. Marks posits that in the state propagated by haptic visuality, ‘the eyes themselves function like organs of touch’. In opposition to optic visuality, haptic removes the distance between the viewer and the viewed, ‘...it is more inclined to move than to focus, more inclined to graze than to gaze’. In Straw Canvas, the latter idea is taken literally. The straw bales that assume the film’s screen are inappropriate for this role. They are rounded, therefore varying the distance the projector’s light must travel. Furthermore, they differ in tone and quality; compacted stalks reflect the light in a way that the loose stalks do not. Dark gaps between the bales cause crevasses to appear in the footage. The bales are much more suited for feeding cattle. What their use does achieve, aside from a distortion of the original material, is an exhibition of Marks’ haptic visuality. When viewing the filmed documentation of the work, one can sense the straw tactically. The sharp, dry, serrated consistency of the material is recognised. The canvas becomes tangible and mimics the theme of the displayed film.

Margaret Tait’s Portrait of Ga (1952) offered inspiration for the theme of Straw Canvas. Her depiction of the habitual processes involved with rural life, as well the quiet toughness that is often observed in the characters that reside in such places, is found also in the educational farming material produced in the mid-60s. My intention was to explore the relative concept of progression by using footage from both the past and future while positioning it in the present. The farmyard in which the projection was displayed could be seen as borrowing elements from both videos, disrupting the temporal distance between each. In ‘The Othered Cinema’, Erika Balsom studies the treatment of time in Stan Douglas’ film Overture (1986). In the threshold that separates public, standardised time and the subjective time of involuntary memory, between ‘regularity and contingency, public and private – lies the time of cinema.’ While restricted in scope and duration, an exploration of various interpretations of time was central to my work's thematic development.

Rather than underscore a concrete message about sustainable farming practices, or, conversely, the loss of agricultural tradition, I wanted to create a piece that evades a single interpretation. Straw Canvas is encouraged by the themes of time and rural life, but its value exists in its evasive mode of representation.