SOMETIMES (Fire in Zero Gravity)

Video Installation, 2002, 5 channel installation on 10 TVs and 4 projections, 8 min. loop

Bjørn Melhus, Sometimes, 2002, Video Still

Description:

Ten television monitors evoke the structure of a campfire, while four projected figures look onto it and onto each other. The work takes the form of a fireside ritual to discuss transitionary moments between reality and fiction, as well as the paranoia set off by  loosing the distinction between one and the other.

Operating out of a vernacular that is situated somewhere between fireside story telling and the fictions produced by televised media, Sometimes (Fire in Zero Gravity) questions the distinction between reality and fiction. Produced in the wake of September 11, 2001, four walls play host to projections depicting the artist as a childlike figure, dressed in full pyjamas, holding onto the wing of a stuffed animal toy. The four child characters look onto each other and a pile of television sets, as if situated around a campfire. The video presented on the televisions annotates the cut and pasted dialogue between the children, the indecipherial sounds and colour fields evoke the presence of some phenomenological spirit is being awakend through séance. Sometimes takes the form of campfire rituals and incantation ceremonies to illustrate the transition from reality to a form of fiction which is unknown, suspicious and potentially unstoppable.

Installation Views:

Production Team:

Performed, edited, directed and produced by: Bjørn Melhus
Assistance: Sebastian Kraft