Domain: New Media | Video

Techniques: Betacam digital PAL, 4/3, color, sound

Duration: 3 hours

Acquisition: Donated by the Society of Friends of the Museum. Project for contemporary art, 2004

Inventory number.  AM 2004-94

On display: Pompidou Museum, level 4, Film, video, sound, digital works area

https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/cbzbe7

 

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It is a 180-minute video work, presented in slow motion with a long take, almost played out frame by frame. The subject I filmed is a girl in the subway, quite strange in demeanor. She is constantly peeling the skin from her lips, alternating hands as she does so, her eyes darting around, sometimes looking vacant. She wears a red outer jacket that reveals a black, Chinese-style embroidered sweater underneath. In the shot, she appears relatively still, while everyone and everything around her—people, the train, and even individuals outside the windows—are moving slowly. Only the lights outside the windows flash by rapidly. The people around her are dressed in black and slowly move until they eventually obscure her completely. That’s it. The sound is also unusual, played in slow motion and out of sync with the image, evoking a feeling of being in a cattle shed. The work is displayed through projection. It was completed in May 2002.

（Text Provided by the Artist）