“Harton Moor” by Erin Dickson
Title:
- Harton Moor
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Filmmaker, Video Artist, or Animator(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Artist Statement:
Harton Moor is an animated guided tour of a 1970s council estate in South Shields, presented as an idealised architectural model set against the personal narrative of a child resident, Jessica. The 1:1 representation of the streets and houses of Harton Moor is rendered in uncanny detail within a colourless, translucent world without the marks of human interaction. A pristine virtual flyover of the site is interrupted by the messy realities described by Jessica, revealing the complex relationships on her street.
This reverse-engineered portrait is simultaneously specific and universal. Whereas the architectural view is a macro, pristine, sterile, idealised, god’s view, the child’s is micro, messy, complex, chaotic, disjointed and human. Both depict a singular place and time and yet could describe any estate in Britain. Offering elements of truth and fiction, Harton Moor exposes the friction between the perspectives of the imagined architect and actual resident, where reality sits somewhere in between.
Commissioned as part of FACT Together 2021, presented in collaboration with Hervisions, with support from The Granada Foundation and The Nora Smith Charitable Settlement.
