David HALL British, 1937-2014
Vidicon Inscriptions: The Tape, 1973
Single screen black & white video, with sound
One Digital Betacam videotape
One Digital Betacam videotape
Duration: 6 mins
Edition of 4 plus 1 Estate Copy
'..Here preserved are the poignant traces of ghostings, where the mugging of participants has at once the presence of improvisation and yet is already caught in a moment, simultaneously, of...
'..Here preserved are the poignant traces of ghostings, where the mugging of participants has at
once the presence of improvisation and yet is already caught in a moment, simultaneously, of
capture and decay. The work is about the materiality of the screen technologies of the day, for
sure. It is also, especially in retrospect, an elegy for the passing of time - the time of the gesture as
it fades from the screen, the time of technologies that have their moment and pass away'.
Sean Cubitt, "Greyscale Video and the Shift to Colour!, Art Journal, Fall 2006.
Over-lighting exceeds capacity for assimilation in a 1970s video camera and images are 'burnt' into
the surface of its tube. Here a unique property is discovered where both the passage of time and
trace of that continuum are registered as one. A section of the original tape version records the
image of the artist with a camera (via a mirror) panning, by stages, across the screen. Before
movement the lens is covered and re-exposed after the change, and each time the image appears
to be inscribed onto the screen. In the interactive installation a camera registers the live passage of
time through a translucent polaroid shutter. Periodically the shutter lifts - triggered by the
participants' movements - and images are fixed and inscribed.
once the presence of improvisation and yet is already caught in a moment, simultaneously, of
capture and decay. The work is about the materiality of the screen technologies of the day, for
sure. It is also, especially in retrospect, an elegy for the passing of time - the time of the gesture as
it fades from the screen, the time of technologies that have their moment and pass away'.
Sean Cubitt, "Greyscale Video and the Shift to Colour!, Art Journal, Fall 2006.
Over-lighting exceeds capacity for assimilation in a 1970s video camera and images are 'burnt' into
the surface of its tube. Here a unique property is discovered where both the passage of time and
trace of that continuum are registered as one. A section of the original tape version records the
image of the artist with a camera (via a mirror) panning, by stages, across the screen. Before
movement the lens is covered and re-exposed after the change, and each time the image appears
to be inscribed onto the screen. In the interactive installation a camera registers the live passage of
time through a translucent polaroid shutter. Periodically the shutter lifts - triggered by the
participants' movements - and images are fixed and inscribed.
Exhibitions
5th Experimental Film Festival, Knokke-Heist, Belgium 1974-5
The Video show, Serpentine Gallery, London 1975
Documenta 6, Kassel, 1977
Followed by further numerous appearances
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