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Episodes, 2007
Z/X#4 Situation. Ron Left & Monique Redmond
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Z/X#4 Situation proposal
Ron Left & Monique Redmond
Episodes seeks to look at the idea of
documentary as a reenactment of event, in the form of a series of
reoccurring experiences. The work will question the ability of
photographic media to reinterpret the repetitive transitory
experience into a new experience. Conventions of documentary and
matter-of-fact record will be used to capture these short-lived
moments and represent them as the events they are.
Our aim is to focus on reoccurring actions as a discontinuous
yet parallel string of events. In isolating everyday occurrences
(experiences that don't usually typify or characterise an event,
such as transitory routes), the 'to and from' will be removed and
in its place the repetitive act transformed into a series of
episodes[1]. As episodes these act as
subject metaphors for experiences unseen, recording the tracings of
flaneur type movements.[2] Whilst this project
does refer to the flaneur in method, the artists here pose as
actors. Working with a sense of determination and non-determination
we endeavor to find something that may or may not exist by
repeatedly going on the same excursions, over and over again.
The notion of a transitory experience suggests that there is a
place to go to, and whilst a 'course' will be defined through
revisiting, its purpose is representative of a non-destination.
Rather than a documentation of a journey, the outcome is a set of
images and thoughts held together only by the scope of the
constructed event. Photographic data and figurings operate as
metaphoric samplings of events. By identifying a series of routes
[episodes] we will devise a method of engaging with the unseen,
thus creating a performative record through the act of doing. We
intend to repeatedly revisit these happenings to the point where
they become the focal experience.
Work produced for Z/X#4 will be responsive to the
conditions of the publication format. Methods employed will
consider the performative practices of documentation in order to
raise questions concerning the nature of photography as an
object/language/experience of the world. It is envisaged that the
work will be, neither a documentation of the event itself, nor
composed images taken during the event; rather a series of records
that are determined by their place within the event and
representation within the artwork. In a sense, the artwork
determined by the accumulation of repetitive acts will question the
ability of time and repetition process to construct
circumstance.
PUBLISHED in black & white (conceived as colour works)
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[1] Reference to Corinna Schnitt's
"Between four and six" 1997, which is a performative work (video)
about the routine and ritual of cleaning roads sign utilising
particular behaviors, every Sunday between the hours of 4 & 6.
The accumulative act reinterprets itself as an everyday ritualistic
situation.
[2] "Walking slowly, the flaneur
enacts a series of movements and glances: simultaneously gazing
upon the entire scene and becoming lost in the labyrinth. Turning
this way and that, pausing to wipe the dust off a rusting sign,
overhearing snatches of conversation, and weaving past temporal
narratives into the current scene, the flaneur sees what
might otherwise be obscured." (Wood, A. "What Happens [in Vegas]":
Performing the Post-Tourist Flaneur in "New York" and
"Paris"". Text and Performance Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.4, October
2005, pp.315-333.)