[Journal entry for 16 December 2005]

 

Strange response today. I presented my video work. I had worked on this video with the idea of representing a ‘landscape’. In the video, a vague narrative unfolds in which two people, who are never directly seen, are shown in a seaside landscape. It starts with a moving shot from a car going through a tunnel, which opens up to a view of the countryside. The daytime landscape is overexposed from the bright sunlight and it dissolves into pure white light. The ‘blank’ screen is cut by the sound of a boat’s motor. For the first thirty seconds of the work, there appears to be no image until the edges of the screen slowly reveal a moving image under and/or around a white rectangle that is shrinking in size. Throughout the duration of the video, a series of shots of a seaside landscape unfold around the white rectangle with slightly rounded corners, which gradually reduces its size but maintains its exact 5 by 4 ratio. (Figure a.)

 

After the presentation, a discussion followed which revealed that many people were intrigued by the relationship of between the white rectangle and what was concealed underneath it.

 

The discussion eventually ran its course after the usual bevy of constructive criticism and cautious praise was bestowed on the work, when suddenly a professor by the name of Monsieur Foucault suddenly piped up with “You know, I don’t know what you were thinking about when you made this, but it seems very pertinent to me, particularly in the light of the recent events in the suburbs.” I wasn’t quite sure to make of this, as I quickly went through what he had just said in my head, consciously making a translation into English. Obviously, the “recent events in the suburbs” referred to the riots and burning of cars in the poorer Parisian suburbs by youths, that had recently transpired in November 2005.

 

So just to verify I responded with “Err, vous voulez dire les émeutes dans les banlieus?” To which he replied, “Yes and you know, it’s going to be increasingly like

            

this, everything significant that happens is happening in the periphery and not the centre.” He stared at me expectantly but as I was a little baffled by what seemed to me to be a rather anomalous remark, I gazed back speechless. Another student sitting in the front, leaned back and yawned “Ohh- tu cherche loin là.” Basically, “Don’t you think you’re reading into it a little too much there?” Monsieur Foucault shrugged his shoulders and shot another knowing look at me. The discussion had come to its end.

 

So that was there and then.