INTO THE OFFING is an experimental audiovisual piece that cycles through layers of time: history, deep time, fleeting moments, set on the white cliffs of Dover. ‘The offing’ is the liminal part of the horizon between sea and sky, and the film explores this idea of intangible shifting borders to create a vivid portrayal of the very edge of England.
INTO THE OFFING unearths layers of physical strata and time. Along the seabed, through the mud and concrete, by the breathing tides of the English Channel, there are spectres: derelict bunkers, crumbling concrete citadels, structures lost to the sea, buried streams. Different scales of time clash: geological, historical, the cycles of nature and botanical time - the rhythmic lapping of the waves and dripping water- a hidden flowing force that shapes the film, as though the landscape is telling its own story. The sound uses experimental field recording techniques to portray the sensory experience of the spaces. Looping drones reflect the gradual physical transformations of environmental change and the impacts of the Anthropocene. The offing is the most distant part of the sea in view; the liminal part of the horizon between sea and sky. The film explores this idea of intangible shifting borders while the cliffs - a ‘living landslide’, slowly sink.
