Gerard Byrne's films seem able to create a mood of complete familiarity and complete otherness. Set amongst the serene modernist interiors of the Kröller-Müller Museum at the Sonsbeek Pavilion in the Netherlands Byrne restages the discussions from the article '1984 and Beyond' that was printed by Playboy in 1963 and that gathered together 12 key science fiction writers of the time including Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. The dialogue is performed by accented Dutch actors dressed to match these 1960's utopian spaces which along with the clarity of Byrne's style of filming has the effect of further distancing us from the source material. It is a hazy dream like montage of styles that merge a dated retro-futurism with the stern knowingness and European sensibilities of contemporary pluralism. It is a reality that has eaten itself several times over which when said out loud becomes a temporal trainwreck: a modern retelling of a past event in which writers of science fiction discuss a future that is now past.
There is nothing new about the re-appropriation of image and meaning, so it goes from relational aesthetics all the way back to Duchamps urinal, what is telling about Byrne's films it the level of comfort and ease with which these realities coalesce. I feel we, as an audience of 2010, are less concerned with the positioning of reality whether it be up, down, left or right from the piece, it no longer needs to be located. The artist (and ad man) work on a vision that touches many places and times but are all a means to an end, a perfect vision existing at 'the expensive of reality' which is an ethic born, in some ways, from the utilitarian wants of the marketplace. I feel comfortable with this constant rehashing and realignment of material, it feels like home; its alien-like utopian nature is seductive and calming and from which I had to save myself from drifting off to the accented sounds of amateur Dutch actors.
No comments:
Post a Comment