It is almost as if this landscape -northern, green but reluctant to growth, its coastal light interspersed with deep shadows -is a constant of sorts. Or at least an ostentatious situation, in its illustrative and almost classical and colour-intense organisation as an image. The ageing protagonists emerge in slow motion from the right hand side of the image and rather elegantly walk backwards, occasionally stop, a prudent look in their direction of movement, and then reassume their steps in the clear cut middle ground.
The viewer is engaged in a painterly form of watching, or waiting as it were, as the women move slowly through the open landscape. The women affect the landscape as the situation affects the viewer: their reverse ambulating, their hesitation before each step, is also a signal of our comprehension of their actions and our place and role as viewer.
The landscape is the same for Judith, Frederikke and Albertine. Their perceptions doubled through the authentic, local site which is well known to each of the women and tripled in terms of situations and specific persons depicted there. As a viewer, our sense of inner time is speeded up as we catch the first glimpse of the slow-motion appearance of the woman in the right hand side of the screen, and our space is accordingly limited through the static observation of the projection.
As visual information is serenely protracted, the viewer's subjective motives intermingle and are invested in an overlapping of time and space. In 'Looking Back', temporal progress is the process that allows space in the video to fold in on itself, as the women retrace the landscape in their slow and silent translocation. Here, you have the fullest sense of space-time. You may record every micro-event of each woman's route from the screen's right to its left - the majestically idle unfurling and falling into place of the beige and white lapel of Judith's windcheater; the sedate resilience of the women's gait; every downwards glance before yet another fragile, premeditated backwards step. It is we, the beholders, and not the women, who are imparted in the landscape. The womens' itineraries go on, beyond the image on the screen.
'Looking Back' is a work about old ground retraced and revisited, and the value inherent in the attempt to possess your time in a new way.' [Lars Bang Larsen ]
Presented at Tate Liverpool.
Financially supported by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, London.
[LESS]It is almost as if this landscape -northern, green but reluctant to growth, its coastal light interspersed with deep shadows -is a constant of sorts. Or at least an ostentatious situation, in its illustrative and almost classical and colour-intense organisation as an image. The ageing protagonists emerge in slow motion from the right hand side of the image and rather elegantly walk backwards, occasionally stop, a prudent look in their direction of movement, and then reassume their steps in the clear cut middle ground.
The viewer is engaged in a painterly form of watching, or waiting as it were, as the women move slowly through the open landscape. The women affect the landscape as the situation affects the viewer: their reverse ambulating, their hesitation before each step, is also a signal of our comprehension of their actions and our place and role as viewer.
The landscape is the same for Judith, Frederikke and Albertine. Their perceptions doubled through the authentic, local site which is well known to each of the women and tripled in terms of situations and specific persons depicted there. As a viewer, our sense of inner time is speeded up as we catch the first glimpse of the slow-motion appearance of the woman in the right hand side of the screen, and our space is accordingly limited through the static observation of the projection.
As visual information is serenely protracted, the viewer's subjective motives intermingle and are invested in an overlapping of time and space. In 'Looking Back', temporal progress is the process that allows space in the video to fold in on itself, as the women retrace the landscape in their slow and silent translocation. Here, you have the fullest sense of space-time. You may record every micro-event of each woman's route from the screen's right to its left - the majestically idle unfurling and falling into place of the beige and white lapel of Judith's windcheater; the sedate resilience of the women's gait; every downwards glance before yet another fragile, premeditated backwards step. It is we, the beholders, and not the women, who are imparted in the landscape. The womens' itineraries go on, beyond the image on the screen.
'Looking Back' is a work about old ground retraced and revisited, and the value inherent in the attempt to possess your time in a new way.' [Lars Bang Larsen ]
Presented at Tate Liverpool.
Financially supported by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Royal Norwegian Embassy, London.
