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An (Abject)ional Experience

Thursday evening the Institute of Modern Art beckoned with the prospect of enjoying MONO 2, a series of 3 sound artists. The second of these by Abject Leader left me blown away to say the least.

This piece was an incredible installation using both visual imagery and sound that needed to been seen to be believed. In all, Sally Golding used a series of five 16mm projectors, each with 16mm films shot on her spring motor Bolex, mostly frame by frame, and then edited on her Steenbeck (a flat plate 16mm editing bed), slickly sliced with intermittent flickery film leader.

A series of films including "Johnny's Ghost" with fields, a dancing skeleton, animals and alike along with a film called "Bloodless Landscapes" that featured sunlight on fields, grass, trees, animals, houses and much more were then shown on a variety of mixed mediums.

These included the chipped and damaged concrete walls of the space, Chiffon curtains hung in assorted fashions that distorted and fractured the images being projected as well as a piece of tattered worn waxed paper  used as a double screen to project the same film on either side,
suspended by fishing wire and bulldog style paperclips.

There was even also an old Panasonic RGB video projector (so old that even google image search comes up blank!), deliberately misaligned and pointed towards 4 of the projectors that were being used for the performance that provided light play with the use of overlaid split color beams on the wall behind the projectors. Film was draped across makeshift cabling consisting of fishing wire creating the sensation, with the additional use of a strobe light that created a space where the audience could feel as if they were part of the machinery and the piece.

A series of slides of 60s Sci-fi magazine covers, using two-colour separation (red and green) projected onto one of the chiffon curtains throughout the duration of the piece provided a unique contrast that to the variety of films being shown simultaneously and truely brought out the inner geek sci-fi/techno geek in me (Okay, maybe the wine had a little bit to do with it!) The use of electronic processing and live sound featured field recordings and various instruments such as the krar, gong, thumb piano, and multiple speakers and electronic gadgets, as well as some rather unique vocal expressions by the collaborators of Abject Leader provided a stunning audio contrast to the visual imagery.

Definately the best, and in many ways immersive film experience I have experienced in quite a while, well except for Passport to the Universe and The Search for Life: Are We alone, or Cosmic Collisions (which I am yet to see but working on that one) which goes without saying!
Leaving, albeit drunk, with an assortment of new reading material from one of the finest art literary collections I had seen in some time, it was time for a quick beer before catching the train home with my Sister, who was listening to Hillsong (of course) while I was drunkenly well ... let's leave it at that.

Added by joel on 23 November 2006