Back, Back, Back and Forth, Forth, Forth
(2003)
Back, back, back and forth, forth, forth takes Michael Snow’s 1967 film < > (Back and Forth) as a base and videotapes various ways of viewing the film (with his permission.
The piece turns the camera on the viewer and presents some of the possible ways of following the original.
In this case, ‘following’ is meant literally, that is to say that the eyes, the head, or the camera of the viewer are made to ‘follow’ the back and forth motion of the mechanism moving the camera in the original as it plays back. By this, the piece highlights the performativity of the act of viewing. Here we are following the materiality of the moving image and are thrust into its back and forth oscillation between spatial and temporal parameters.
Moving image, moving viewer.
Presentation History
– 2008 Montréal (publication, CDr, Oral, Ostinato, 07)
– 2004 Québec (performance, Méduse, Mois Multi)
– 2003 Stralsund (performance, garage Festival)(curator Eric Mattson)
