Each video starts with a still image showing one possible death scene. The opening scene is also the finale. The dead woman is the artist’s mother.
Using ‘Augmented Reality’ the viewer is invited to scan the image, reveal the video and thus resurrect the dead. As the video plays out the viewer discovers that the image is deconstructed with time moving back in retroaction… from end to start. In every death, art brings the mother back to life. It is a small victory over death, made possible by a film’s basic ability to rewind.
Dress Rehearsal engages with time and the particular relation of each medium towards it- the film records a continuum and the single photograph freezes a moment, snatching it from the linear flow of time. The sense of time, and the happening, embodied in the video demands its viewers to change the way in which they understand the image and offers a dense experience in retroactive understanding. In the culmination of the images, repetition becomes compulsory; prematurely, again. Death, the most singular of events, which take places for the first and last time, is duplicated.
This video series has taken upon itself a complex mission – to accept the betrayal of time. Time, by its very nature, passes away. The trajectory of separation is interwoven into all relationships. Even before it has taken place, it contains a measure of certainty; someone always leaves and someone stays behind. On different screens in this video, a mother and daughter stage different possibilities of death. The name Dress Rehearsal points towards the act of practicing. Perhaps the mother and daughter are practicing the possibility of separation. It is a peculiar kind of practice, since it refuses to accept the verdict and insists on rebelling against time. On every screen, in every death, art brings the mother back to life. It is a victory over death, but takes place only within the video, lacking any substantial power. What moves time from its course is video’s basic ability; the possibility to re-wind.
The mother and daughter are dealing with repetition of a trauma, yet, the expressions on their faces disclose no pain. Instead, they are engaged in performing the actions necessary to construct the scene; throwing away a rag, spreading flour, entering the position. The lack of emotion makes it difficult to understand the nature of the relationship, instead the viewer must concentrate on tiny gestures; casual touches, the seen yet unheard speech and their different roles. The way in which the daughter films the video exposes a fragment of the relationship. The shooting itself seems like a somewhat childish game. The mother’s participation in her daughter’s video and her willingness to play the part of a corpse also raises questions. She agrees to be shot in positions she is clearly unaccustomed to - sprawling on a sports ground, spread in ketchup, puncturing her clothes. Is this a motherly sacrifice? Or is she an accomplice to murder? Maybe she wishes to control the uncontrollable. The mother's willingness to sprawl on a sports ground, spread in ketchup, to puncture her clothes or to play the part of a corpse, is surprising. It's a murder in corporation, a separation made together.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
