Descent 2005
DVD
projection, silent black and white 33 min loop.
Projected into a
totally blacked out space across a constructed corner ‘stage’ in
R O O M,
Bristol, in 2005. Viewers entering
the space were totally disorientated until their eyes had adjusted.
Our most
primitive experiences of architecture were formed first in the body, and then
in the cave. The flickering light of flames on cave walls has often been
described as the earliest means of animating images. Descent juxtaposes
two disparate architectures; the cave and the modernist cube, by using light,
darkness and the moving image to reveal and conceal our surroundings. The work makes reference to the ‘
phantasmagoria’ of pre-cinema with its crepuscular imagery, shifting the
boundaries between reality and illusion, and creating more of a tactile, erotic
experience than a revelation.
‘A cave is a
room is a cave. Thinking of the
relationship between the projection, the architecture, the body and the eye –
the space as a kind of ‘oculus’, a mouth or an eye, the back of the skull. How and where interior images meet
exterior images...’ Tabatha Andrews 2005
Peter Suchin's review of 'Descent'