Jonathan Romney in his obituary piece in the Guardian sums her up thus. "The marginal position she sometimes occupied in the film world had much to do with her eclectic practice, which made it hard to assign her a neat "auteur" identity. Nevertheless, from early in her career, Akerman attained a somewhat legendary status among cinephiles as a cinematic radical, a formal innovator and a pioneer of modern feminist cinema".
The titular and centrepiece of the exhibition is Akerman's final gallery work NOW (2015). During her travels in the Middle set Akerman collected images from desert regions specifically those that had been violently contested. The scene channel video projection with surround sound presents these often desolate and deserted constantly moving landscape images. To accompany this there is an all encompassing soundtrack of a violent war-zone blasted at the you from all angles with surround sound creating a weird dichotomy of image and soundscape. The movement creates a feeling you want to escape and rush away but the soundtrack and it's onslaught of bombs, gunfire and disturbed cries of fear and pain will not let you. However it is what we do not see that makes the piece so memorable. Allowing the viewer to project their own horrific images of the atrocities of war onto the calm but ever changing barren landscapes Akerman gives us as a canvas for our imaginations to fill.
The use of sound is fantastic especially its surround sound coming at you from all angles and creating a 3D soundscape drawing your attention this way then that, and is an idea I would love to explore myself. The staging of the installation is also strong 5 large screens disappearing away from the viewer and floating from the ceiling. The are projected onto slightly opaque perspex in an obviously darkened room and the overall appearance is hugely impressive. You can even walk around a little amongst them to fully immerse yourself in the installation which again is an idea I find intoxicating. The whole piece is a powerful assault on the senses whilst at the same time allowing room for introspection on the horrors and nature of war before, during and after.
In the Mirror (1971) is a 16mm video transfer is a scene created as in installation form Akermans 1971 film "L'enfant aims - ou je joue a eyre use femme mariee". A woman stands mostly naked before a mirror talking to herself and honestly appraising her body of it's better and weaker aspects. One long MLS the viewer is a voyeur of the main characters own voyeur as she inspects her body. It is an awkward view as the audience trespasses on an intimate and frank moment the character is having with herself. Shot in B/W it is an interesting cross over of when can a scene from a fiction film be gallery based art? It is an arena I am interested in the blurring of art, fiction and factual.
A Voice in the Desert (2002) is a single channel video projection with sound. The installation is a sort of documentary of a screening of a feature film she made portraying life on both sides of the US/Mexican border about what a difference a line on a map makes. Taking this idea one step further Akerman then arranged for a screening of a section of this film actually ON the US/Mexican border constructing a double sided screen, mirroring the different standpoints. I love the idea of this and the clever choice of the location that a piece is screened having a huge symbolic resonance with the actual piece of work itself.
Maniac Summer (2009) and Maniac Shadows (2013) both were multi projection four channel projection installations and whilst clever in set up and technique both left me a not as affected as her other work. Maniac Summer was centred around a shot of Akerman's Paris flat apartment with an often unattended camera observing not just the apartment but the happenings outside her huge window. She sometimes potters around taking calls and a counter stamps the time of the recording. Smaller projections show the happenings at a park children playing, images artificially zoomed in on, with a second screen and often distorted, B/W or reversed. The film plays with the structure of time and place, showing traces, remnants and shadows and is interesting for this if not the content and presentation of it. Maniac Shadows contrasts a variety of images forcing the viewer to create and impose links. Obama's election party, busy exteriors of life, often obscured views of a NY apartment and toilet, shadows and the artist finding refuge behind her bed. 96 still images from the from the moving images are displayed creating a stark coldness to the piece. Curiosity is ignited, links are forged and broken between the images and confusion and anxiety is left in between all of the interwoven media. The idea of the collision of images and the multitude of these pieces interests me here but I did not enjoy the huge ambiguity of the pieces. The multi screen projections of varying sizes was interesting and playful though and the spaces that they were shown in were all enveloping to the viewer. Both of these ideas I want feel are worth further examination and development in my own practice.
D'est: au bord de la fiction (1995) (From the East: Bordering on fiction) was a fascinating installation. Using scenes from her film D'est as the raw materials 24 screens banks of monitors in groups of 3 represent these unstructured series of scenes as an organic narrative. The viewer walks around these scenes creating their own narrative based on their own navigation of the piece. The original film D'est explored eastern bloc countries before the fall of communism reflecting a condition of expectation and changlessness. The installation playfully contradicts this as it is ever changing and carries no expectations as to what can happen next. The work also separates the comfort and sense of community (one complete film) with lots of individual scenes representing the individual and subjective.
The staging of the installation with 24 separate screens early captures all of the above with an ever changing narrative and structure as characters, locations, sounds and stories all collide to create a personal reading. The way the music and sound from one screen spills over into a scene next door can link them, be parallel or be contrapuntal or all of these at the same time creating a new meaning or viewpoint and experience for the viewer. I found the installation amazing and the very multi-viewpoint of a text creating a new reading for every viewer something to which I aspire.
No comments:
Post a Comment