Chamber Music - Paul Knight

An extract from Perimeter Editions (1)…

[Paul Knight’s]first book jump into bed with me considers intimacy as a conceptual proposition.

Positioning his 35mm camera on any available surface within the given environment or architecture – a mantelpiece, a log, a coffee table, or a rock at the beach – and setting a timer, Knight and his partner simply make themselves available for the camera to see what it sees. […] Knight eschews his diaristic gaze in the same way he loosens photography from notions of time or chronology. We’re left to consider both the spatial and the relational qualities of the sequence and the image.

Paired with an edited transcript of the couple’s history of text messages to one another, jump into bed with me is at once a missive to a lover and an ode to photography’s intrinsic processes. The camera, when left to its own devices, can capture wonderful and beautiful things.

I find this work honest, open, and heartwarming. I feel that it effectively captures the banality of everyday life, whilst simultaneously giving viewers an insight into the intimacy of the relationship. By ‘intimacy’ I am not overtly referring to the images of sex or nakedness, but rather the tiny details and little moments that weave together to create the fabric of this relationship.

In an article published in Vice Magazine (2), writer Dan Rule interviews Knight about this ongoing series. Although the above publication is titled jump into bed with me, the broader series goes by the name of Chamber Music. In particular, the following responses from Knight resonated with me, and have given me some ideas and concepts to consider when creating my own body of work.

In regard to ideas behind the work, Knight comments, “We [he and his partner] sort of make ourselves available in front of the camera, but I like to say that the camera is doing its thing and we just happen to be there.”

When asked about the sense of chronology in his work, he states, “so in terms of time, I want the chronology to be completely broken so it loses this linear representation and is rather interpreted more in a spatial way – in terms of volume rather than length.”

(1) Perimeter Editions, Jump Into Bed With Me, viewed 04 April 2020. <https://perimetereditions.com/JUMP-INTO-BED-WITH-ME>

(2) Rule, D 2014. Artist Paul Knight Reveals Intimacy and Distance. Vice Magazine, viewed 04 April 2020. <https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/9bzned/artist-paul-knight-reveals-intimacy-and-distance>