VISCERAL CINEMA: CHIEN (2005)

In Visceral Cinema: Chien viewers interact with a re-interpretation of the surrealist masterpiece Un Chien Andalou by Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel. The work combines key moments from the film with viewers’ shadows to form interactive projections. Initially, viewers see a large video projection of a man pulling a grand piano towards the viewer. When viewers walk between the projector and the projection, their shadows affect the projected man’s actions. Viewers can cause the man to strain harder and loses ground or when touching the man, cause him to dissolve into ants that gradually overtake the entire screen. An application of surrealist techniques to an interactive projection, Chien plays with viewers’ sense of image, representation, shadow, body, and self.

This work is part of a larger series of interactive wall projections that are based on masterpieces of experimental film. Each work focuses on aspects of these films that lodged in the artist’s mind, rather than on a literal revisiting of the work. These memories often turn out to be incorrect, or wholly imagined, when compared with the original film. This working process mirrors the surrealist creative methods of probing the unconscious.

EXHIBITION HISTORY

Telic Gallery (solo show), Los Angeles, 2005
Art Interactive (solo show), Boston, Massachusetts, 2005
Institute of Conteporary Arts (solo show), London, UK, 2006 

CREDITS

Programming by Edwin Chang and Scott Snibbe
Video production by Jamie Timms and Noah Cunningham