Sam Contis

Arbeitsvorhaben

Phases

I am an artist whose practice centers around photography and moving image. During my time at the Wissenschaftskolleg, I will be working on a new book project titled Phases. In this project I am interested in the camera’s distinctive ability to measure time—across fractions of a second, days, and years. The book is based on a series of photographs and a three-channel film of runners in the landscape. In the film, three young women run a five-kilometer race through the countryside at different times of day: one in the morning, one at midday, and one in the evening. Each runner occupies her own frame, and each run is a single uninterrupted take, the distance itself being its own measure of time. The black-and-white photographs, made over the course of five years, are intimate studies of the faces of teenage runners as they approach or cross the finish line of a race. In my work, making books is a means to explore the relationships between images, in terms of rhythm, narrative, and form. I will also be researching a new film project, currently in the early stages of development, drawing on material from the archives of a late 19th-century writer and naturalist.
 
Recommended Reading

Contis, Sam. Deep Springs. MACK, 2017.
Lange, Dorothea, and Sam Contis. Day Sleeper. MACK, 2020.
Contis, Sam. Overpass. Aperture, 2022.