Reflexivities of Camera, Body and Space

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For two weeks, performer and artist WeiZen Ho and I were based in the Rex Cramphorne Studio, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney, exploring the tentative nature of performance video making. WeiZen inhabited several outdoor and indoor spaces across the wintery USYD campus in the pursuit of phenomenology of space and how time based visual capturing of body in space can be addressed considering infinite viewpoints, phenomenal occurrences and energetic resonance. I used lightweight cameras, handheld and on tripod to capture variations of the architectural spaces WeiZen had chosen and also to capture myself filming her, included in the frame from many angles and superimposing them to create a geometrical sliced or co-existing layered video space.



WeiZen says: “The research was… to formally engage with the idea that places might harbour sentience or memory, suggesting a distributed consciousness within geographical and sociocultural histories.  This invited a rethinking of boundaries between subject, object, and environment, opening new possibilities for understanding the relationship between place and human experience... Sam’s dual role disrupted traditional documentation practices, folding the observer into the observed.  The videos captured moments of multistability, such as the movement of horsehair across a wall, which simultaneously represented material action, visual imagery, and spatial inscription.  These videos were later projected onto concrete walls near the Rex Cramphorn Studio, extending the performances into a mediated visual experience.”



A 20 minute video projection of video performance in progress was projected on concrete over three nights of daily 6 hour performance viewing. Post-residency I re-assembled three new composited videos showing different approaches to viewing body and space, viewable here:

Cornered Consciousness

Gold Fold

Green Thread


Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney, 17-28 June 2025