Fort McMurray Wildfire Series
YouTube videos of people's experience with the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, which was nicknamed "The Beast," captured three types of experiences: watching the approach of the fire, fleeing through fire, and watching your house burn. The videos present a first person witness perspective of personal experiences with the wildfire. The publication of the videos via YouTube enabled viewers to become second hand witnesses to this same event. Mediated witnessing of experiences with the wildfire were recorded with dash cams, doorbell cams, and phone cameras, which each had different affordances and constraints that influenced the images and sound captured on video. This series of works is my intepretation of the essence of the experiences captured on video by people who lived in Fort McMurray as they faced the threat of the wildfire as it encroached on the city. All of the images in this series are artist creations based on scenes from different points in time in the videos.
