This piece reveals non-verbal forms of communication between disparate individuals through video footage captured over the course of an afternoon in the city of Sendai, Japan. Fleeting moments that often go unnoticed in our day-to-day social interactions are extrapolated to reveal the strangely intimate connections that occur in a society in which physical spaces are progressively dissolving and our interactions are becoming ever increasingly electronically mediated.

Wendy Haslem writes in Realtime 77
‘In Conversations, Intimate moments with random strangers, Alex Davies explores the dual impulse of connection and alienation in an environment of dislocation and surveillance. Communication is at the centre of this exhibit, but Conversations is less about verbal discourse and more focused on investigating the possibility of connection through the eyes of anonymous people. Individuals are singled out from a crowd as they glance towards the camera/viewer. In elongating the duration of the moments of visual connection, Conversations seems to promise imminent contact. But because these intimate moments are fleeting and finally fail, ultimately this exhibit emphasizes unrequited desire.’

Exhibitions

• Re:search / Art collaboration of Australia and Japan, Sendai Mediatheque, Japan 2006

Credits

• This project was commissioned by Sendai Mediatheque
• Thanks to Kent Shimizu