|
||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Working primarily in video Kihlberg & Henry utilise the intense structuring of industrial cinema to create complex relationships between our experiences of life and moving image. Often their video works are created in live and performative settings, with video acting as a mechanism to record, and drastically alter, the processes in which it was made. In other works they abandon video altogether in order to use the structure and function of cinema in unconventional ways by re-applying it to new situations and interventions. Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry have been collaborating since 2004. They are based in Birmingham, UK, where they have also directed Springhill Institute, a seasonal programme of international artists production residencies. From January to December 2009 they will be researchers in the fine art department at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry are represented by Citric Gallery, Brescia, Italy
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Texts Worth The Wait (Review of solo Show at Skol, Montreal) Review of solo show at Castlefield Gallery Expect the Unexpected (Writing on The Waiting Room) Dancing In The Streets (Writing on Like A Musical) Time & Breakfast (Review of Time & Breakfast) This is Real Life, This is Columbia (Review of Columbia by The People's Elbow at Springhill Institute) All texts © The Authors. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Worth The Wait (Review of solo Show at Skol, Montreal) I've talked enough about this edition of Mois de la Photo, I know, I know. But there's just something about it that keeps beckoning me back - it's been such a pleasant exploration of a very wide-spanning theme, a theme that by its very nature frees the imagination of the viewer. The narrative possibilities of images, whether captured or created in photography or video, is a pregnant subject if ever there was one. One of the most fun experiences to be had - because fun is an essential yet oft-ignored feature in art, dontcha know - is at Skol, courtesy of Swedish and British (respectively) videographers Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry. Created last year in the context of a residency at the New Art Gallery Walsall in England, their piece comes in two parts, and is titled Waiting Room. The main part of the work, projected large-format on the wall, is a 30-minute dialogue-less video. Entirely set in a seemingly characterless waiting room, the video is made up of a series of vignettes featuring a cast of so-typically-British-it-hurts characters in a variety of absurd situations. Aimed at illustrating the "unavoidable experience of waiting," the piece puts its players in an awkward relationship to each other and the space. Set to a soundtrack of eerily exaggerated recorded sounds, they play with objects, occupy themselves, and enter into dramatic psychological dynamics by way of universal signifiers like body language and strange looks. In short, they tell wordless stories. Some of the scenarios are funny, some are creepy. Alone, this half of the work is fully and uncomplicatedly engrossing. Add to it its second half, and you've got genius. In the corner of the same main room rests a small television on a pedestal with a pair of headphones. Before you can hear what's going on, the screen shows the familiar images you've just watched on the first film. But this turns out to be the making-of. It's a hilariously natural, voyeuristic experience to see the "reality" behind the pretence, to hear the environmental sounds rather than the tense, over-recorded soundtrack that accompanies the main film. You get to enter another sort of narrative: that of every performer who answered the casting call and was auditioned. You get to see them transform on camera, you get to see the bluffs and the blunders, and best of all, you get to hear the control the artists are attempting to impose. This half is infinitely better than any special feature your latest rental might offer. With both halves, the narrative dimension of Waiting Room expands far beyond the sum of its parts. It's like a storytelling Rubik's Cube. The perfect tool to while away time. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Review of solo show at Castlefield Gallery Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry’s video art frequently transforms the arbitrary into the extraordinary. Fittingly, here The Waiting Room adds incidental music and sound to footage from a previous Walsall Gallery exhibition increasing the spatial and emotional dimensions of each piece. A teapot becomes a well and a blank expression is imbued with sadness by marrying it to a mournful tune. Performance #1- showing Henry having his tongue nailed into a table similarly proves that a few crude effects and little inspiration can go a long way. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Expect the Unexpected (Writing on The Waiting Room) Artists Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry talk about their artist practice and their recent experience as artists in residence at The New Art Gallery Walsall. Having recently returned from a residency at Redgate Gallery, Beijing, China and the Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, Australia, this Birmingham based duo recently returned to the Walsall gallery for a showing of their ongoing project The Waiting Room. Earlier this year Karin and Reuben turned The New Art Gallery into a fully operational film set, taking the shape of an institutional waiting room, in which gallery visitors were invited to star in a series of videos. Their intention was to give the building a sense of cinematic mystique, looking at 'the institution' as if it were an autonomous machine, and creating a rich fictional world from elements of the building which exist outside of the public eye. AoE: When did you first realise this is what you wanted to do? Reuben: The Waiting Room was inspired by a culmination of the times we had spent in such rooms, that idle time in unfamiliar institutions, waiting with strangers who never so much as give eye contact. Also, of course, you are usually waiting for something that you don't particularly want. But at the same time it's a time when you are broken out of a busy routine and are forced to do nothing , a time when you are allowed to let your mind drift and be free, albeit under the influence of an unfriendly and foreboding atmosphere. I also read a short story by Will Self titled 'Waiting', and Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot'. They both take this limbo nothing-time as their basis, and for me really instate the value of boredom. I've always thought a bit of boredom is good for an artist, it's the time when the imagination loses control and thinks up things that the rational adult mind often blocks out. Then we watched The Shining and everything fell into place, and gave us darker ideas of what might be behind the doors of The Waiting Room. AoE: How and when did you first start working together? Karin: We had been working in each others presence for several years, and always chatted our ideas through with each other, often working as each others assistants. At some point we saw a real big connection in what we were trying to say with our work, and the ideas we were playing with. The conversations were becoming more in-depth and eventually we just forgot about personal authorship. After that the collaborative process began quite naturally. AoE: What were aims with your recent work which was on show at Walsall? Karin: With The Waiting Room, we really wanted to create two very different worlds. The first was the situation where the public wander in to a really depressing film set. It has no natural light and feels a bit like some old Soviet interrogation room. They get ordered to look left and look right, sit down and look scared. All the while we are talking and the radio is playing, perhaps giving the impression that the end product will have a low technical standard. This was followed by an intense post-production period; dubbing all the sounds of footsteps and adding the mysterious voice of the Tannoy. When the people involved come back to see it, a completely different world has been created. So the audience are really involved in the work in the beginning, but what comes with the final product is something that is estranged from the original real-life situation. AoE: What have your experiences been like taking your art form to different countries? Reuben: Taking our work abroad is often a strange process of self-realisation. Sometimes references and styles no longer give the same message. Some works are more or less universal, but the process of self-realization occurs because people see the work from a completely different point of view, and often have their own reference points with which to read it. If you can take your own work as a metaphor for yourself, then it's easy to see how people misunderstand each other. In Melbourne this spring we made a series of videos asking people for their opinion on the notion of 'Britishness'. What we were searching for was an insight into who we are (Karin is Swedish but she's been here long enough to be part of British culture). What we found, though, was much closer to an expression of the Australian identity crisis. It's a complex situation and no doubt we only scratched the surface, but while we found nothing about Britishness that we didn't already know (apart from our gluttonising on cucumber sandwich's) throwing ourselves to work in another culture really led to some interesting accidents. The 'happy accidents' are important in all fields of experimentation, and working in other places only increases their likelihood. AoE: For you, what is the best thing about performance art? Reuben: The best thing about performance art? Probably the possibility that it can all go wrong, that there is a sense of experimentation which is taken out of the laboratory and into a public arena. I think that failure should be embraced and celebrated as a concept much more- as long as there is an ambitious attempt at something then the outcome shouldn't really matter. But one of our main reasons for working this way is that we get to deal directly with our audience. Sometimes with static art, the 'piece' can stand as a barrier between the artist and audience, and certainly what I appreciate about seeing other live artists is the chance to interact with the artist him or herself. I'm not always so interested in works of art, but I'm very interested in meeting the people who go out of their way to make it. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
Dancing In The Streets (Writing on Like A Musical) 'Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat'. 'Greased Lightning' and 'America'. There's a good chance you know them word-by-word. The more agile amongst you might even know all the dance routines, memorised after watching the videos over and over on wet Sundays or sitting down and singing along in the cinema. But whilst we may fantasise about exploding into song with the rest of the characters whilst watching them on screen, what would we really think if someone did that right next to us on the street? Would we really get carried along by the sudden outbreak of euphoria or would we quickly hurry away worried that other passers-by would think we were as nuts as the singers and dancers surrounding us? Well on June 5th Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry will be springing this surprise on the unsuspecting people of Birmingham as 'Like A Musical' bursts onto the city streets. 'When you watch a musical you take all these ridiculous song and dance routines for granted simply because they're on film,' Reuben says. 'But we're bringing it into real life which gives it a gritty edge. We were thinking about what people would sing about if they suddenly started clicking their heels. When we put it into a completely different context like that it forces people to think about it in a new way. It takes it away from the cinema or theatre because there isn't a set audience - the public aren't even part of our master plan because no-one knows the time of the performance so everyone there who isn't directly involved is completely incidental. We want it to happen as if it was something completely natural - as if there's some inner force just making these people sing and dance.' But although the song and dance routines being enacted by Karin and Reuben's actors might seem spontaneous to the people who see them, they are actually the results of months of planning. This has ranged from assembling the cast, writing a script and songs and commissioning an original score and choreography to more mundane logistical concerns (Karin now knows exactly how many steps there are in the Mailbox off by heart) in preparation for the day itself. 'There is a set timeline to it but because it's not a set in a predictable setting we cant control every aspect of it,' Karin admits. 'But that's part of what were making. We really don't want a situation where people can stand and watch it as if we were using these spaces as the theatre - it should be a short moment where you see something really amazing and beautiful. We've put as much work as possible into making it as perfect as possible but part of the beauty of it is that it never can be.' 'One of the great things about performance art,' Reuben enthuses, 'is that although there's a primary audience who actually witness the event, when its over the performance gets much bigger. People tell other people about it but when things are put onto film the expansion of that performance is halted. No legends can be made because the proof is there on the video, but when people just talk about seeing it becomes much more amazing because they're really excited or much darker because they're really annoyed by something. Its always extended in one way or another and one person seeing it spreads to ten or fifteen people. I find the fact that that's ultimately uncapturable absolutely fascinating.' As you might gather neither Reuben nor Karin fit into the stereotype of the control-freak artist obsessively toiling away in isolation to create immortal monuments to the human condition. On the contrary their works - whether solo or collaborative - are often inspired by and embrace random chance and unpredictable situations, as well as containing a sly sense of humour often directed at the art world itself. For Karin's 'I Am Karin Kihlberg' piece she trained an actress to take her place at various art galleries whilst their 'Time and Breakfast' exhibition satirised 'arts' freeloaders who turn up at gallery openings purely for the free alcohol by offering everyone who attended a free fried breakfast instead. Yet although they set out to puncture the art world's pomposity it could be argued that such acts are an in-joke which ultimately makes them no different to the self-obsessed people they're sending up. Reuben vehemently disagrees however. 'It is a conscious decision because this is my world and I'm communicating to other people who are also within this world. So it became obvious to make work about it because this is my life. If someone else makes work about something that they're into but I know nothing about then I don't see that work as exclusive. I don't see why anyone would see something that is just about the art world and say 'I don't know anything about that so I'm going to walk away.' It's another world to look into and I think that people aren't interested in just one thing. I really love and respect the art world but I can also see humour in it. There are great ironies and tremendous travesties and hierarchies that shouldn't be there and the whole thing can seem ridiculous. But anything looks ludicrous from certain angles.' For whilst both Reuben and Karin are trained in Fine Art neither regard themselves as residents of the ivory tower. You can't adopt airs and graces when you live in Birmingham they claim - the city where the two arrived (Karin from her native Sweden and Reuben from Burton-on-Trent) to study at university in the late 90s. Despite being home to such international institutions as the Ikon Gallery the pair struggled to find a grassroots arts scene after graduation but rather than following in the footsteps of so many of their contemporaries and up sticks to London Karin and Reuben instead resolved to nurture one themselves. With this in mind they established the Springhill Institute in Ladywood specifically as a meeting-place for local artists, as well as a space for international artists to exhibit and collaborate with the Springhill artistic community on new and ambitious works. 'We didn't feel that anyone was travelling in and out of Birmingham from around the world,' Karin explains. 'We really wanted to learn from other artists who were more established than we were, so we invited international artists to come and live and work in our home. They stayed with us for two weeks to produce work and we introduced them to people and organised seminars which helped them to create work. Its just grown from there.' 'I think Birmingham is more ludicrous than the art world!' laughs Reuben. 'When I first came here it didn't seem to make any sense - the way its such a big city but seemed to have this small town mentality rather than a metropolitan feel. I spent years complaining about this place and then after travelling around the world a bit I realised that everyone complains about where they live no matter where they are. So I've quit complaining and now I'm making the most of it. Now we've made so many connections here that its become my home.' Indeed, now they're making a real song and dance about it. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
(Time & Breakfast was a show by Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry with work by David Miller)
1. Time and breakfast: held at artist-run space Springhill Institute, attempted a direct challenge of structures within the reception of art by inverting the time and scale of their private view from PM to AM. 2. This review attempts a direct challenge of characteristic procedures employed with the general review format. 3. What is the function of a 'confrontation' with the art system and does this 'function' operate successfully within either experimental model? (1 & 2) If we are unsatisfied by standard procedures then we must presume that a better alternative is available and experiment relentlessly until a better model is established. 'Time and Breakfast' demonstrates a very plausible critique of the narratives associates with art systems, focusing on the model of the PV (private view). This review of that event focuses on the traditional signifiers of the PV, breaking down their appropriation at 'Time and Breakfast'. 'Time and Breakfast' opened on the 17 August, a one-off open viewing as subsequent viewings were by appointment only. Running from 6am until 9am, projection, text and a live TV link up between the kitchen and gallery featured as part of the morning's events, which presented the work of Karin Kihlberg, Reuben Henry and David Miller. It was an acknowledgment of the PV as a social experiment. 'Time and Breakfast' questioned who orchestrates this in addition to what the ideals of the PV have become. Evidence of spatial interaction left by PV visitors became a symptom of the event's conceptual premise. Attendees gathered in the kitchen for the main part, leaving a trail of beans and coffee circles on the table and breakfast bar. Coffee cups were positioned around what had become the reception area, presenting the remnants of their contents. Few milled around the 'gallery' space for long, giving up the pretense of the traditional private view and opting straight for the social engagement. If we accept that currently the commercial exhibition dominates the popular public perception of art, then we may consider artist-run spaces and their shows as the 'chic' alternative. Perhaps we may suggest that artist-run shows challenge the commercial ideals of viewing. Consider this action. You attend a PV. You pick up your glass of wine and handful of nibbles, wave suspiciously to a couple of faces, initiate a conversation and repeat until fade. At some point during the routine you make the journey from the wine table to the artwork. On Tuesday the 17th this relationship was exposed at Springhill Institute. Walking from the reception/kitchen (which had become the event by 7.45am) to the 'gallery' became a representation of the barrier between the social and artistic endeavors inherent in the experience of the PV. I imagine the space attempting to segregate itself as 'domestic/social' and 'art', but failing beautifully. It provided a clever metaphor for the concept of the show. The event was the 'barrier' that tried pitifully to exist. Making it a morning event simply highlighted that fact; visitors not able to carry their fry-up around like a wine of glass, instead choosing to eat and converse without embarrassment. It didn't segregate the social from the artwork, it highlighted the importance of sociability in the presentation of art. Inevitably, and somewhat ironically, the new system we form from our revolt becomes a matter of habit and eventually as conventional as its predecessor. There is no escape from the conventional or traditional because it evolves. Is revolt futile? Or is it a necessary function we thrive on? Anything that claims radicalism is quickly absorbed by hungry artists, curators and critics alike, and reclaimed as the monumental. Thus it became the source that provides next season's 'radical'. Challenge, analysis, review and experimentation are not futile however. On the contrary, they are essential to the testimony of the conventional. Inverting the conventional food/drink adornments and time constraints of the PV may only consign 'Time and Breakfast' to variation of the same struggle. However, it responds with a challenge. The expectations are disrupted. For instance, the presence of a critical text, usually a key accompaniment to most exhibitions, a conventional tool, is absent form 'Time and Breakfast' - the elimination of an often-superfluous hindrance. It was a simple but critical move on behalf of Springhill. The work on display was inherently about the event - text would have been redundant. The encounters, happenings and interactions of Tuesday 17th, 6-9am, were essential to the audience's experience of 'Time and Breakfast'. This model could be maintained in the review of any PV as a critical analysis of its fundamental procedures. Take the pre- and post- PV experience for example. In case of 'Time and Breakfast', the shock of crawling out of bed a 5.10am balanced out by the bliss of riding smoothly down the Aston Expressway with no traffic became significant. Why do not the pre- and post-experiences of any show merit the attention for critical analysis? Patterns of visitation relating to am/pm schedules were clear from the outset. Painfully obvious on my arrival at 6.10 was a feeling of being unfashionably on time, not felt if the opening had been pm I'm sure. As the sane visitor rolled in at 7.30am till past 9am 'closing' it further highlighted the traditions inherent in conventional PV agendas. "Mmm", I pondered as one of only two there for an hour and a half. 'If this was pm then everyone would be down the pub by now...' 'Ooo', my mental notebook went, '.. .time, sig-nif-ies., struc-ture, of, evnts'. Also noted: arriving, mingling, coffee pouring, coffee drinking, sugar stirring, toilet usage, chair shortage, burnt toast, bean spillage, furious eating (free fry up), eye rubbing, yawning, foot shuffling, standing and viewing patterns, conversation making, cup rising, plate popping into washing up bowl, leaving. The audience congregated in patterns of three at the wall to read Henry's work. The agendas people had - coffee then art, talk then coffee, art then talk with coffee...I noted the tiny interventions made into the commonly devised social program of PV's like more casual dress, even more just-got-out-of-bed-hair. Each and every little 'incident' became a mark with which to plot the PV. 'Time and Breakfast' is best understood in terms of the relationship it creates with its purpose, audience and location. Uncovering and analyzing the frequently overlooked details of the PV brings us within tangible grasp of breaching the wall between art and everyday life. Tracing the non-programmed interactions within the space is a way to avoid identifying the artwork as the 'event' and focus instead on the integral conceptual theme. The consciousness and awareness of the situation, the recognition of the environment, the realization of time structures, and the appreciation of added extras (wine/coffee) all determine the experience of the private view in general. 'Time and Breakfast' not only illustrated this gloriously with a few simple moves, but challenged the function of these things. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
This is Real Life, This is Columbia (Columbia was made by The People's Elbow at Springhill Institute, concieved by Reuben Henry and written with Michael Grime. The People's Elbow, on this occaision, also included Karin Kihlberg, Will Alexander and Levi John Reeves) "Do you see it? Do you see the crack?" "The crack was already there when we took off" When I first heard about the Columbia project, I got confused with the Challenger disaster and just remember thinking that I should feel as if it was a sick thing to base an artwork on, while actually feeling nothing. Even when I was told more about the history of the space shuttle Columbia, and I realised my mistake, I wasn't very clear on the details. I suppose I must have heard about it in the news, but it was just something I hadn't really paid attention to. I find it difficult to relate to any kind of tragedy; my strongest emotion is usually guilt that I don't sympathise as much as I imagine I should. But at least that guilt proves I'm not a sociopath, right? I was interested in the plan of making the exhibition 'the making of a movie'. I know from my own work that the usual expectations of the audience can be disrupted by blurring the boundaries between what is preparation/behind the scenes and a finished artwork; and who is the performer or audience when visitors are encouraged to participate rather than be passive observers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but you can always learn something. The People's Elbow were particularly interested in how to make a film about something that was not the real focus of the news story - what were they actually doing up there anyway? They decided to fictionalise the events leading up to the break up of the shuttle, based on what little they knew about the crew and the mission. They were also keen to make it as filmic as possible, within the restraints of the space, their lack of budget and the fact that filming/sound would be done and characters would be played by whoever was in the gallery at a particular time. I was too busy to take part in the first few days of shooting, but when I did arrive I was shown around the 'set' and we viewed rushes of what had already been filmed. What I saw was funny and well composed, and there were easily identifiable characters. I was pretty jealous - my own non-budget no-set-cast film was having trouble - but I soon got involved. I didn't really know what was going on as I took part in the filming, I was told to put on different costumes, told to say lines, told how to act. It was quite enjoyable in an odd way; I just turned my head off, and became a robot. Of course there were times when my self broke out. I had to crawl through several holes to get from room to room, which wasn't easy for my fat arse, and once when I was in the background of a scene I realised I had been staring fixedly at something for too long and burst out laughing. In the final film, I am consumed by horror and can't enter the illusion at these points, but that has an interesting, de-familiarising effect. The final scene was shot on the same night that the film was going to be premiered which ensured that everyone who first saw it would feel particularly involved. Columbia was also shown a few weeks later with scenes added that had not been finished for the opening night, but I have not made a distinction between the two versions here, for no good reason other than I'm a sucker for what people wanted something to be like over what it was actually like. The film opens with a scene of the astronauts being shaved, a familiar scene from war films, however the implement used is a huge cooking spatula, which sets the tone for the uncanny humour we experience throughout. The gung-ho rock music over this cuts suddenly to silence and clouds, another precursor to the unsettling use of sound and it's absence that runs throughout the film. Perhaps knowing that people aren't very familiar with the crew, there is an overtly contrived exposition by Husband to his family, and here we learn the relationships that have been given to the crew, based on what little was known. The central dynamic is that Husband idolises McCool, and despises Brown, mirroring the simplistic characterisations of Hollywood, but exaggerating this to absurd levels. When we first see all the astronauts together, they are in slow motion and there is overblown choral music, perhaps an angelic requiem, another cinematic cliché to signify heroism and subtle tragedy. Sound effects are used to give filmic qualities and heighten tension, but also gives authority to less than perfect sets and acting. Over-lighting is used partly to hide the sets, but this gives the effect often used to signify heaven in films. At one point in the take off sequence, the boom mic and soundman are entirely visible in shot as the Chief says "...and that's how we do that ladies and gentlemen!" I don't know how accidental this was, but I find it significant as a message of intention - the People's Elbow show you what they are doing, show the techniques of illusion making and manipulation in their work, in mainstream films, and in society (American in particular). Weightlessness is only used now and then, which heightens its dreamy, hallucinogenic effect. "I'm so high I could be in heaven," says Chawla as "she" floats. Old-fashioned comedy music plays as sweets and astronauts fly around, but when we cut to the outside shot the silence of space makes their jollity seem ironic in face of what we know happens. When the crack in the wing is discovered we see Brown silently swearing. This is a guaranteed crowd amuser, used in many films aimed at teenagers, but also shows how his fears will be ignored and dismissed as paranoia. The crack in the wing is the Lacanian fissure in their idealistic world-view that is too horrific to look at. McCool often suggests that Brown's worries are indicative of his own mental state, and that he needs to adjust himself , rather than anything else. Is this simply a suggestion that we create our own reality; a reference to how dissenters are subdued and distracted by self-doubt and self-analysis; or is McCool trying to point out that they all need to right themselves with the universe before certain annihilation? The problem is often described as "cosmetic", and it always makes me think of how social and political problems are disguised, hidden and dismissed by those in authority, even if it will lead to destruction. Clark's son rushes in to see the television, but where we expect to see him watching his mother in space we see an episode of a space animation, Ulysses 31, where a starship is being damaged. This highlights the difference between fictional disasters where something can always be done to make things OK again, and the actual disaster, where nothing could be done. In fiction there were explosions and excitement, but everything is alright. In fact (as presented in this fiction) the crew get on with mundane everyday tasks, but then die meaninglessly. This disparity is mentioned again later when Brown compares their situation to Star Wars saying they won't have a happy ending: "This is real life, this is Columbia". Of course, trying to say the events depicted are real and not fiction is a common filmic technique. By this point, everyone is drawing away from Brown, we seem to be seeing things through his eyes, everyone is smiling like Stepford Wives, lines are repeated, slowed down and speeded up in a way that signals hallucination or insanity in the traditional manner. The futility of their activities is shown by Clark showing off a model of a space station while babbling about how important it is in a way that reminds me of under-critical post-modern claims that hyperreal simulacra are more valid than actual truth. Has he gone mad or have they? He leaves them to look at the wing, becoming a literal outsider. The buzzing sound associated with him fades away, which is a relief to the audience until the silence becomes uncomfortable too. The space scenes seem too long, I'm told there's a reason for this, and it does leave enough time for us to feel Browns isolation on more than an intellectual level. Back on board there is a shadowy scene with McCool talking to Brown about the buzz of an insect that is reminiscent of the Kurtz scene in Apocalypse Now. We associate the insect with Brown, because of the buzzing noise that accompanies him which gets louder during the course of the film. He is being turned into a scapegoat, a Christ-like sacrifice and I'm also reminded of the exclusion of Piggy in Lord of the Flies but that's probably because it was burned into my brain during school days. McCool seems to be trying to find meaning in a meaningless event, as this film is. There is another space walk by Brown, with psychedelic effects that suggests of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which ends with a visit to a Russian Space Station. It is becoming increasingly unclear whether what we are seeing is actually happening or in the fevered imagination of Brown, but this just means we identify with him more. The red-lit, visceral partying of the Soviets is in strong contrast to the dutiful, clinical American mission, but could also suggest hell. Perhaps the whole film is some moment of death vision, where Brown is struggling to find his path to the afterlife, as in Jacob's Ladder. At the start of the final scene of Columbia we hear "Action!", the first of many breaks in the filmic illusion. The set and actors inside the shuttle can be seen in the background of shots of mission control, multiple uncertain looks at camera, people fluffing lines and grimacing, lines repeated. These are extreme forms of what has been happening throughout the film and are interesting on many levels: it reminds us that the making of the film was the artwork rather than the final film; it startles us out of being captured by the narrative so that we can be critical about what is being presented; it becomes a film about film and film's impact on the space programme; and it is part of what makes the film post-real. This is not a standard post-modern analytical distance and suspicion of 'truth', but uses transparent fiction to transform our experience of reality. I didn't know anything about the people who died in Columbia before I took part in this project, and that didn't really bother me. This could have been a worthy dramatisation, using a documentary style to tell their story and while I would have learnt some facts, possibly even shed a tear, but I would still essentially not give a fuck. Instead, I feel like I know these people: Brown chews gum and is a bit paranoid, McCool plays chess and philosophises, Husband shadowboxes and is weirdly paternal to his crew. Of course I know that these are just characterisations made up by the scriptwriter in bored moments at work, but that just makes me feel more protective towards them. These are people completely turned into fiction, their originals are dead, they don't even have a fixed face associated with them here, but we gave them existence by becoming them and accepting their continuity as we watched them in different actors. When we see actual footage of the break-up on entry of the space shuttle, we feel that we are watching 'our' crew die, and the jump to 'real' film coincides with the 'post-real' feelings we have. Most films based on actual events destroy the reality, turn it into fiction so that the truth vanishes. A post-real film can use it's own explicit falsity to highlight the illusion and manipulation that are presented as truth by authorities and the media. The whole space programme is based on fictions: that astronauts are heroes; that we need to do things before the 'other side'; that progress is going 'out there' rather than solving problems 'down here'. Many people have wanted to become astronauts because they enjoy the escapism of science fiction, but end up serving the militaristic interests of the establishment. Columbia asked "What were they actually doing up there anyway?" and the answer it seems to have given is "Becoming Science Fiction". ______________________________________________________________ The 28th and final flight of Columbia (STS-107) was a 16-day mission dedicated to research in physical, life and space sciences. The seven astronauts aboard Columbia worked 24 hours a day, in two alternating shifts, successfully conducting approximately 80 separate experiments. On February 1, 2003, the Columbia and its crew were lost over the western United States during the spacecraft's re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Seven asteroids orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter were named in honour of The Space Shuttle Columbia crew, Commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark; and Israeli payload specialist Ilan Ramon. http://www.nasa.gov/columbia/home/ http://www.columbiaspaceshuttle.com/
|
||||||||||||||||