Transition Practice, video mixing performance, Art and Drinks, Toronto, 20 min.
Documentation: 1 min. 32 sec.
This is a performance of ten video transitions executed ten times each. For several days before the performance I practiced specific sets of transitions using the T-bar of my video mixer (much like a dancer practices dance moves). With two live cameras trained on my hand holding the T-bar, the audience witnessed my performance of the transitions along with the projected mixed output, the content of which was video transitions of my hand performing video transitions.
This piece flashes the dialectic of video performance by raising video to the second power. By filming the formal components of video mixing in order to reflect upon the practice of live video performance and—at the same time—performing video mixing in order to reflect upon the formal components of the video image, video is effectively turned back on itself in a movement of self-translucence. Like any dialectic, what at one level is a limitation is at another level a great strength—and when mediated through the reflexivity of this video-concept, the limitation of a clichéd edit turns into a sublime object of narrative force…while the narrative of the performer practicing her craft turns into a non-narrative image of singular abstraction. The repetition of ten video transitions executed ten times is what grounds the viewer and keeps the play of signifiers from flying off into their separate orbits. This simple repetition turns into a complex video concept, while the complex concept itself turns into the concrete components of video making. Simultaneously video theory and practice, this piece performs the blindspots of video and holds out the possibility of overcoming them.
Performed at:
Experimental Film Festival Portland, Portland, Oregon, May 23, 2012.
Art and Drinks, Toronto, November 12, 2011 (above).
A Month of Sundays, Hub 14, Toronto, May 2, 2010.