Quartet
Four
monitors present a fragment of Hassam Abdo’s gestures (see Duet) as
enacted by different people: hands up, turning backs to the
camera, looking over the shoulder at the camera and facing forward
again. This material is shown in slow motion. At any one time four
different people are performing the same set of gestures.
Trio (dedicated to you)
Modified chair with song heard through headphones.
“If
I should write a book for you, that brought me fame and fortune too,
that book would be, like my heart and me, dedicated to you.
If I should paint a picture too, that showed the loveliness of you, my art would be, like my heart and me, dedicated to you.
To
you because your love is a beacon, that lights up my way, to you
because with you I know, a lifetime could be just one heavenly day.
If I should find a twinkling star, one half so lovely as you are, that star would be, like my heart and me, dedicated to you.”
link to audio excerpt
I'M SO SORRY
A
large scale text work printed on a transluscent scrim placed so
that people have to pass around it or through it to access the space, a screen through which one can see into the gallery.
On this screen is a text which can bee seen from both sides.
quartet / moatMOAT
A
pre-recorded video work with site-specific input. This version
can be installed in the gallery or in non-gallery areas such as office,
reception dest or hallways, mimicking a CCTV set-up. Live video from
local surveillance cameras is combined with pre-recorded footage and
sound in a work which viewers can manipulate by selecting video sources
seen on a security monitor.
link to video excerpt
DUET - TRIO - QUARTET
Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Halifax: July, 2008
A survey
of recent installation and video work including DUET (video
projection), TRIO (audio piece), QUARTET (video on 4 monitors), MOAT
(video piece using security cameras) and I'M SO SORRY (text on
fabric).
DUET
Hassam
Abdo was a teenage suicide bomber disarmed by Israeli soldiers near
Nablus in 2004. DUET is an echo of the gestures of Abdo. A man and a woman engage in a set of movements based on
the news-video footage. At first the man is almost motionless
except for eye movement and the occasional twitching of a limb. The
woman steps in to calm these movements, then helps initiate them and
again tries to calm them. This cycle continues increasing in intensity
until there is a all-out physical struggle.
link to video excerpt
