Frieze Art Fair

this is frieze art fair.

Martin Arnold

Martin Arnold cuts, extends and reverses found films; with these obsessive and repetitive techniques Martin Arnold causes hidden narratives and subtexts to be read from the films.

The two examples I briefly viewed were Passage à l'acte (1993) where a few succinct clips from Robbert Mulligan's To Kill a Mocking Bird (1962) have been revamped in the Martin Arnold style to generate an uncanny view of a family held up by aggression and thick tension. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (1998) in which Martin Arnold and compiled clips from various monotonous Andy Hardy films and constructs a narrative heavily influenced by Oedipus complex. By using harmless scenes with Andy Hardy's character and his mother; Martin Arnold's editing has caused them to appear incredibly obscene and lust driven.
In the example above, I believe this particular scene works well due to the music in the background; because when reversed and repeated I can't help but be overwhelmed by the intensity from the music mirroring the reversing of the visual.

But does he search for these underlying narratives that seem hidden to initial viewer or simply create them?

'Chameleon' by Tina Gosalves

'Chameleon is an interactive video installation that explores the subject of emotional contagion between groups and individuals and it stems from Tina Gonsalves' continuing fascination with human emotion, intimacy and vulnerability. '
http://www.fabrica.org.uk/whatson.htm

Tina Gonsalves worked on the Chameleon project with various professors ranging from Prof Rosalind Picard from Brighton and Sussex Medical School to social neuroscientist Prof Chris Frith; with all of these minds at her disposal she developed an algorithm that assessed peoples emotional state. This algorithm would then determine how the prerecorded actor's emotions would appear on the screens. The concept is based on emotions and how people often attempt mirror the emotions of the people around them, other aspects of the concept were around how people attempt to 'read' others by their emotions and how they react to the current surroundings.

Chameleon at Fabrica; eight to ten unframed squares hung from the ceiling, windows blocked out and the only light available was from the glares of the projections. Primarily I was very much intrigued and confused by these screens and how I saw other viewers reacting and staring into them. However I'm not sure if there were any technical problems or if this wasn't quite what was said to be delivered but after short experiments with each screen I noticed it didn't seem as if the actors inside the screens were reacting of their viewers. It seemed as if they were purely recordings with a slight aspect of chance to the order in which they were played but each actor would always end in the same reaction.

Only way I could see this being relevant or worthwhile would be if the cameras attached to the projections were recording the viewers faces and reactions and then all recordings of the viewers would be collected and then this collection would form art itself. Then it would be interesting to not just see the art create art but a combination of the art and the viewers creating the art. Also the experience was incredibly unnatural and awkward because inside a gallery emotions and facial expressions aren't a common and standard thing. So the viewer is forced into pulling faces in hope of a reaction.

In terms of display it did not live upto my expectations, it worked but i feel it could have been much more successful if the projections were larger and having six or so projections all focused on one viewer would result in the overwhelming aspect to the piece of art which could possibly spark emotions and reactions from the viewer.

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