This is a long exposure from April 23 to May 21, 2025 at The Stamp Gallery | University of Maryland, College Park | Written by Olivia DiJulio
When viewing and creating digital art, how can we see beyond the glass? With image-making, how can we elevate the flat nature of screens? Transcending the medium of the digital realm, This is a long exposure explores the methods and artistic revisions in reframing environments and reshaping the everyday with digital and analog means.
Photography, videography, and digital projection are deeply integrated in this exhibit as central conveyors of time. These mediums are concentrated on generating and controlling visual phenomena. The camera and the lens have the power to capture light into a still image, and putting those images together in a sequence creates the motion picture. However, there is often a predictability in the traditional presentation of video feeds. In a hyper-digitized world, the novelty of screens has become an everyday interaction. As users of technology, there has been a standard expectation of clarity and instantaneous feedback.
Suspension by Jeffery Hampshire aims to reconfigure these notions of viewing into sources of motion, angles, and change. The piece features four monitors, each with custom acrylic castings to mount the transparent film. Both the acrylic mountings and film have a digital quality to them, almost replicating refresh effects of CRT TVs. The film itself was made using inkjet printing techniques, and is the highlight of this work. Each video feed features looping video feeds of suburban sights. There is something inherently human and man-made, featuring construction, architecture, a fallen e-bike, and a small forest clearing. The familiar sights combined with the unorthodox presentation create a unique composition within the genre of video installations.
Jeffery Hampsire, Suspension, 2025, 22” displays, transparency film, cast acrylic
Video art as a medium speaks to the very form of light. In combination with film and physical optics, Hampshire works by rebending, refracting, and changing our perspective of reality. Rather than just isolating the feed, the negative and positive space created with the film forms new dimensions to the piece. The contrast between the video feed and the transparent film seeks to form optical tension. The literal layering of images also speaks to the processes of filmmaking and digital art creation. Digital artists often work in layers to have control over the independent aspects of the piece. Layers are meant to be invisible, unnoticed, and embedded into an artwork. However, Suspension turns this workflow into a tangible outcome, by refracting and distorting the video feed below.
Quite fully, there is a visual hierarchy at play. The physical barriers and materiality of the film used in Suspension challenge the viewer to reconsider the ways we perceive the world. The film, being transparent, is not necessarily erasing what is there, but recontextualizing it into an ever changing viewing experience. It is more so an interruption rather than a deletion. You will never get the full image when looking at the piece head-on, and viewers are encouraged to move and find the spaces between the video and material.
Hampshire challenges the traditional linearity of observing video installations by adding additional visual depth to his work. Exploring the transformative nature of video, he promotes the ideals of the ever changing states of reality. Our environments will never be static, and neither is the dynamic form of video and multimedia works. Rather, there is always motion in the perceived stillness of the mundane. Suspension emphasizes the role of physical materials in shaping how we understand time and imagery. The physical materials remind us that what we see can always be filtered by tools and contexts. Through this lens, Hampshire opens up a broader conversation about the optics of perception, questioning not just what we see, but how we can reconsider the driving factors of attention and perception in the world around us.
Jeffery Hampshire and Julia Reising’s work is included in This is a long exposure at The Stamp Gallery of the University of Maryland, College Park, from April 23 to May 21. For more information on these artists, find them at https://www.instagram.com/j.hampshire_art/ and https://www.juliareising.com. For more information on This is a long exposure and related events, visit https://stamp.umd.edu/centers/stamp_gallery.