Twitch, shift, jerk, slip, repeat

This output is a series of digital GIFs Eyre made in response to a commission from Open Eye Gallery and University of Salford Art Collection. The programme of commissions is called ‘How We Remember’ and its aim was to identify gaps in the public consciousness around who is affected by the global health crisis, and create opportunities to document the lived experience of those who have found themselves especially vulnerable. Eyre chose to look at the way that women were impacted by the virus. Research has shown that statistically women are more likely to have suffered economically over the last year and many women have effectively been ‘re-traditionalised’ – confined to the domestic space of the home. We are all navigating unfamiliar terrains, constantly re-drawing our boundaries as our physical presence and visibility in the world continually slips and changes. Many of us have found ourselves existing in an in-between place, somewhere between virtual and physical worlds, communicating through barriers, windows and screens and having to negotiate the unexpected materialities of this new space including the disruptive buffering, freezing and glitching of our virtual lives. There is a feeling of being on the cusp; of being suspended between different spaces and states, and the feeling of fragmentation as we sit at home looking out of the window whilst our digital doppelgängers play in virtual space. Eyre wanted to convey the feeling when you view the GIFs that their surfaces could slip at any moment. The repetition of the GIF, at first comforting, can quickly become uncomfortable. The analogies with our current situation don’t end there – GIFs are open, endlessly adaptable – and of course, they can go viral. The research was shared via Open Eye Gallery’s website. It was also shared via the University of Salford’s Art Collection website. The project was selected for Peer to Peer UK/HK digital festival