7.4.15

Notes on Paysage avec Poussin / How to work live better

Isabelle Cornaro: PAYSAGE AVEC POUSSIN, South London Gallery
"... to reconstruct an image that you see firstly from a frontal point of view (as an image) and then when you go through it, the scene deconstructs itself and you have other points of view that are created.
There is a sort of cinematographic aspect in the fact that you can walk through the installation ...

I film in a very small scale. Objects are displayed either as landscapes or as categories.
It is a very simple film grammar, it's a question of point of view ... and somehow the editing reconstructs the walk we may make through this installation." (IC)
"These tableaux, which could be described as physical representations of the act of watching, activate specific viewpoints reminiscent of cinematic and editing techniques (framing, focus, close-up, wide-angle, tracking, sequence-shot etc.)" spikeisland.org.uk

**Despite the lyrical potential of objects and materials - the oceanic swirls of a glass paperweight; dusty pink marble blocks and vintage cosmetics - the camera's lens remains coolly analytical; cutting/duration of shots, and compositional/lighting experiments seem systematic. An understated and elegant taxonomy.

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Anita Witek: HOW TO WORK LIVE BETTER, l'étrangère

"In the depths of the interlocking spaces, the eye seeks in vain for an image background..." Christa Benzer, Soft Filter with Sharp Edges, anitawitek.net
"The act of cutting is as much about producing content as it is about erasing content. In my method I am constantly layering paper so there is never a complete void. There will always be something to break the fall." (AW)
**Photomontages flattened back into a single graphic surface, but the layers of paper with their roughly cut or torn edges remain tactile, tantalisingly so.

Traces of hand-cutting, the sense of multiple and shifting scales, the (re-)assembling of spaces, furniture and décor is like an architectural modelling, set design for an animation perhaps.

Pairs or series of near-identical compositions create an oscillating, agitated movement back and forth ("the eye finds no resting point").
Incremental changes as between frames of a film strip.