UPON ARRIVAL is a video installation. the audience is invited to sit down on couches, facing three large chairs with a TV on each. an obscured VJ sits in the background, dishing up imagery and death. he wears a pair of video-goggles which displays ominous text. a heavily effected talking head appears on one of TVs, and offers a soliloquy about death. eventually two more heads appear, and they, separately and together, recall what the initial moments of death are like.
Full Description
i filmed three actors talking, in three separate takes. i edited this footage in Final Cut Pro, applying myriad visual/stylistic effects. these were exported and played back in Qlab. they were sent to three separate TV's on three chairs using a DualHead2Go. they had the appearance of having a conversation.
Work metadata
- Year Created: 2011
- Submitted to ArtBase: Thursday May 12th, 2011
- Original Url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze2k_bzwRGI
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Work Credits:
- Science Center, primary creator
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Artist Statement
UPON ARRIVAL
The aim of all life is death...inanimate things existed before living ones. Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principal
What happens when we die? What does the experience of death feel like? Is death actually how we imagine it? UPON ARRIVAL is an exploration into the gestalt of death. Imagine suddenly experiencing no feeling in your body at all — no more pain. Imagine your existence as part of a vast, indiscernible ether. Death is tranquil. Death is where we forget life. Death is a relief. Death is what we are striving toward our whole lives.
In UPON ARRIVAL, we watch three characters journey into death and probe the physiological changes and philosophical question. Death is radically different from what these characters had in mind; yet, death still affects them as the feeling of no feeling, as pure liminality, as a flicker.
UPON ARRIVAL requires mediation. Recent development in media-technology allows for a sophisticated type of storytelling where the artist can control the entire visual image with unmatched precision. Video art is tonal. This is key in exploring the visual tone of death. The quality of death helps more accurately illustrate the way our idea of death looks.
Come and see death for yourself...
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