I am going to write about this work from two different views, one my original view of show based on my viewing, the second based on information given to me by curator Mark Lanctot.

  The exhibition room is dark and there are no sounds other than the projectors and the movement of the viewers inside. There are six projections taking place, all of the same man in the same pose seated silently, moving only occasionally. The screen projections are of different sizes and placed so that no one projection interferes with another. The smell and sound of the projectors take me back to thoughts of grade school, it feels as though a story is being told. There are no seats for the viewer to take and if the viewer so chooses they can interfere with image being shown (i.e. step in the way of the projection or make shadow puppets). The image being shown is of a man in multiple views. He sits silently, often the only way one can tell the image is a video is by the blink of his eyes or his breathing. It looks like a portrait. The most interesting being one about the size of a persons head actually showing the subjects head, this being the most interesting because the image can be seen on both sides of the surface projected on where as most other works are displayed on solid surfaces. I enjoy the instillation as it seems to be a play on painting, in that the artist has used video to portray it’s subject seated silently and stilly, yet it still captures the essence of the subject.

 Part right I am as Mark Lanctot goes in to deeper detail this video instillation of “Merce Cunningham performing John Cage’s 4’33’’ with Trevor Carlson, New YorkCity, 28 April 2007” This is six performances and six films, each performance shot from a different angle. The audio is live audio recorded as the film was shot at one of Merce’s studio’s , the idea being that with out music to score the film all noises happening during filming creates the music. The same idea is taken with the performance, since there is little movement in his body as it is in a natural state of being seated then becomes the performance. Movements other than breathing and blinking, are timed, directed and choreographed.

 This film which was originally conceived as one film was turned into an instillation as Ms. Dean decided one take of the film did not accurate depict her vision, she also felt showing all six films in a row was not how she envisioned it either. She decided to show the work as an instillation scale to life size for each film, so for example the above mentioned head shot was measured to be exactly at the same height as one would see Merce as if you were in the same room, and is to be viewed according to Mark Lanctot as a sculptural experience. Part of the experience is the fact Tacita Dean uses only obsolete technology, which also adds to the work giving it a feeling of nostalgia. The noise the projectors make break the silence, which “…adds to this idea that there is no real silence that the four minutes and thirty three seconds that are recorded on film are also replayed and relived here. The same way that if you were to listen to a recording of Four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence in your living room, you would be re performing it in a way, because ever sound that will happen in your living room as you listen to it will effect the piece, and that is what is kind of happening here. With us here in the space and also the projectors making their sounds and adding to the sound track. It becomes layered, it becomes a musical score, it becomes choreography that becomes a film work which is experienced in the space.” Which form a painter’s experience became two dimensional Video portraits.

 Pretty neat, especially when given the back ground information, such as Mr. Cunningham, being a dancer (he is now in a wheel chair), John Cage having been his life partner and also his work partner, in which when they often collaborated on works where one had no idea what the other was preparing there by often leaving room for spontaneity or the unexpected. Which is the same with how this work was created Ms. Dean was unaware of what Mr. Cunningham would be performing, just as she would be unaware of who would be viewing it. 

This audio recording was taken Wed October 14 of Mark Lanctot (with a hat above the o), the image was appropriated from the MACM Fall magazine issue