Backdrop/Solo (2021) Two-channel video installation, high definition video and Super 8 film transfered to digital, colour, sound, duration: 9 min.
Backdrop/Solo is made up of two videos shown on large monitors, one which is mounted on the wall and one which lies flat on the floor directly in front. There is a passage between the two works in which the viewer may pass through or situate themselves in. Music by The Dead C plays across the two videos.
In the wall video, a shifting sense of absence and presence unfolds through an image which sits in between itself. We witness the persistence of the body between the surface of the image and its latent potential for liveness. The floor video appropriates the historical use of moving image as documentation for dance as fragments of choreography are revealed through stretched images from digitised super 8 film.
In the shifting attention between the two objects, we gain an awareness of our own body as it moves through the gallery space and our co-existence with the moving images both in and out of view.
Backdrop/Solo is made up of two videos shown on large monitors, one which is mounted on the wall and one which lies flat on the floor directly in front. There is a passage between the two works in which the viewer may pass through or situate themselves in. Music by The Dead C plays across the two videos.
In the wall video, a shifting sense of absence and presence unfolds through an image which sits in between itself. We witness the persistence of the body between the surface of the image and its latent potential for liveness. The floor video appropriates the historical use of moving image as documentation for dance as fragments of choreography are revealed through stretched images from digitised super 8 film.
In the shifting attention between the two objects, we gain an awareness of our own body as it moves through the gallery space and our co-existence with the moving images both in and out of view.
Benjamin Ord was born in Auckland, New Zealand and is based in London, UK. He was a dancer for over a decade, working with Company Wayne McGregor and the Royal New Zealand Ballet among others. His practice, now primarily based in performance and moving image, is concerned with the paradox of body and object. A key interest is the way in which images through their relationships to the live body, and within a dialogue between forms, can be re-appropriated to exist within the spatial and temporal present of the viewer.
June 2021
benjaminord.com
@bennyord
June 2021
benjaminord.com
@bennyord