2011
As If
A number of separate works come together in As If forming an installation. All the pieces have the same beginning point which is a film shot by Wim Wenders in 1982 titled ‘The State of Things’.
The film was shot in a deserted hotel and the surrounding landscape on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. The first 12 minutes consist of a science fiction scenario depicting an apocalyptic state and this section is filmed using a strong sepia tone. I was interested in the way this bought up ideas about the future and the past and the end of things. I visited the same hotel, documenting it and its surroundings on B/W slide film. The piece ‘Lens’, the slide projection in the images, is the result of this. The images are projected through a sepia tinted screen into an inaccessible room.
The installation also includes a painted backdrop with a projected text, ‘Suspended landscape.’ The backdrop is a recreation of a prop used in the original film and the text consists of a rolling title sequence of possible other films.
There is a series of six photographs, also taken at the hotel, titled ‘Silver Form’ which are images of a silver survival sheet moving around and being suspended by the air currents. This series plays with the idea of an unrecognised futuristic form or material being suspended in time and place, the survival sheet stemming from the apocalyptic nature of the original film.
As people walk into the space the first thing they see is a neon sign reading ‘HOTEL THE STATE OF THINGS’ – a concrete reference to the film but also a work which announces a central concern with place.
The show was held at Art House Foundation, London
Silver Form exists as a separate photographic series and a short film.
Lens exists as a separate photographic series of 24 images.