Demonstrating life in an abandoned house by juxtaposing photograph and film.
My intention was to use film to show the flow of life and to use still images of the objects left in the empty house in order to show liveliness in a deserted house.
In order to merge these two different techniques in terms of presentation, I used projection to present both on the same screen. Projection made time for looking at both, film and photograph, identical. You could gaze at them although you did not have enough time to stand in front of them and watch. Eventually, you were faced with motion pictures which were in fact still images. 

Walls, windows, doors… were all alive. They were all talking to me. I heard voices in the empty hall and every corner brought back a memory. The weird sensation that the house per se could be living was present for me; Not only the house that I have lived in, but also any house left alone and abandoned somewhere in the city. 

The architecture and people living there were part of these lives of houses. I intended to bring these memories back to life with the aid of image. I wanted to show the “present” even in these abandoned spaces. I needed something more than the photography camera. Even though photos register of a frame from the past only to revive it later, they still freeze that moment and according to Barthes destroy it forever.

When I was looking at things left in the house it was as if people appeared in front of me. These things had turned it to photos bearing the lives of people … ( photos of lamps ), and empty  (photos of dishes ).

They were still life, with no life yet giving life. They were already photos and in fact photography camera was just registering those photos. As Barthes puts it :” in photography never an event goes beyond itself to get to something extraordinary the photo is always carrying a corps.” 

There was no need to include anything else in still life, just the object which was there lifeless and stagnant; and the photo brought back the memories ad infinitum. This is exactly “return of the dead” that Barthes mentioned. All I wanted was to abtain this “return of the dead” in this place.

Perhaps motion was the easiest solution. I used the video camera.

The curtains of the windows swaying in the wind was a slight trace of life. They had to be registered. The curtains were moving but not the camera as if I was unable to move it. The stillness, and the restfulness of the house was rendering me immobile as well.

The nature of this place called for photography, and no matter how hard I tried life was not going to go back to it, this is what I found all the more challenging in this project. Both Cameras depicting the same thing, one still and frozen, the other unconfined and free.

I’ve learned that these two mediums are quite different. Chiristian Metz holds that cinema gives life to death whereas photography keeps death alive through silence and immobility.

But my intention was to merge life and death. I therefore had to keep these two mediums as close to each other as possible.

 But there were also two other substantial differences to consider and that was how these two are presented; one on paper, the other through reflecting light, I could hold one in my hand, the other one was elusive, this is how I thought about using another medium: the projector.

Using the projector you could  view the two simultaneously I could stare at them despite the fact that I did not have enough time to stop and wonder in front of each. Eventually I was faced to moving pictures that were effectively still images.