Three speeches by our then Prime Minister made directly to camera. I took frames from these recordings and fed them through a image averaging and/or focus stacking algorithms in an attempt to make sense of them, and maybe see through the bluster to his soul.
Hands
May 2020
A response to watching Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on May 10th, 2020. This was a moment when the seriousness of the situation threatened to overtake optimistic bluster but didn’t quite succeed.
I was struck by his hands, how they never stopped moving, so I put frames from the speech through an image merging algorithm to draw them out. A ghostly Johnson face was added as a transparency to top it off.
September 22nd
A response to watching Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on September 22nd, 2020. This was another turning point, as the virus started to surge into the autumn after a summer of lessened restrictions.
I was struck by his hands had now stopped moving, compared to April. The gravity of the situation had finally hit home.
Brexmas
December 2020
A response to watching Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on December 24th 2020 after the Brexit trade agreement was finalised.
BONUS: Partygate
March 2023
A response to watching Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s answering questions about the Partygate scandal in which his soul appears to pour out of his face onto the table.
