Artist statement
Filming the progression of clouds through a partially destroyed roof.
It takes decades sometimes for an artist to begin to understand what his or her work has all been about.
At the start of my 60s I am beginning to see mine.
One has been clear from the beginning. All of my work is about story telling, directly or abstractly. Being able to work practically and abstractly is something I feel improves my work in every medium I have chosen to work in.
The other key element of my work is time. Coming to that realization has taken a lot of it.
As a composer, much of my music has been about rhythms within rhythms, or even non-rhythmic elements moving about simultaneously, and about the patterns that result as sonic elements move around one another over time. I have also incorporated recorded sound from our time and times past into my music.
My still photography has been about moments in time, and the terrain around us now that could be very different in the future. My landscapes are about pure “unimproved” spaces, but also about spaces that endure our pesky interruption of the landscape. Spaces that have their own sense of time.
I also document the artists, people and celebrations of contemporary life in Tucson and Arizona.
My documentary film work is about times past and how they relate to now. The things that have been left to us. The struggles people endured. The factors that led to life as it is now. The things we choose to carry into our future.
Nowhere is my link with time more strong as in my art video. Here I can literally control time. Squeeze hours into seconds, reverse time, slow time down, speed it up, and merge footage from entirely different time frames.
With digital technology, time is as malleable as a lump of clay.
As a writer, both as a journalist and in my work beyond, the resonance of time is always a key element.
My stories are stories of time, no matter what the medium.
All of my work in every realm is strongly rooted in terms of methodology in my studies as a young man of the sciences. My work is based on observation, experimentation, hypothesis, testing of ideas, refinement of hypothesis, and on and on. It is about process and where that process leads intellectually and with respect to the development of various skill sets, as well as how my point in the process connects with my overall experience of my world.
It sounds complicated but it’s not. I am a man of strong contrasts. My life and my home environment can be quite chaotic but I am simple and focused in my work. I try to stay disciplined and on task, but I find that I am most successful in doing so when I am simultaneously engaged in multiple projects in various disciplines and media. The synergy of different types of thinking brings fresh ideas to each effort.
– Daniel Buckley, Dec. 2013