Duet for Dancer and Camera on a Tripod, 2015
HD video installation, silent, 09:48 min.
Dimensions vary (floor to ceiling, corner to corner projection)
Duet for Dancer and Camera on a Tripod features Leslie Satin, a dancer, choreographer and professor at NYU. Leslie and I met at Yaddo in 2009 and have worked together on several projects since.
To make this work, I positioned my camera on a tripod in front of Leslie, and started swiveling it from side to side, in a panning shot. I also asked Leslie to move her head from side to side, like a slow-motion 'no', always in opposition to the direction in which the camera on the tripod was swiveling. The result is a slightly sea-sickness-inducing duet.
The work seems to be in a repetitive loop, but in fact, each repetition is cut closer to the end of the single-shot work, so that with each iteration Leslie is closer to finishing her movement. The very last iterations are only a few seconds long.
This work is to be installed as a projection in s a room, filling up a single wall, floor-to-ceiling and corner-to-corner. The image this is intended to conjure is of a giant face stuck inside the architecture of the room, equating the walls physical boundaries with those of the camera frame.
Installation viewDuet for Dancer and Camera on a Tripod, 2015, HD video, 09:48 minutes, silent