Archive: Issue No. 70, June 2003

Have been in bed almost two weeks with flu now ... with polite friends, knowing that I have just flown back from somewhere asking me nervously and from a safe distance if I'm quite sure it isn't SARS.

First real day up. Work at Milestone Studios with Warrick Sony editing soundtracks of interviews for the new project I am doing for the 'Transfers' exhibition which will open at Bozar in Brussels in June. Have to cut 90 minute interviews with people talking about their lives down to three minute segments. The project is called 'Better Lives', and focuses on seven people who have come from other parts of Africa for various reasons to make a new home in Cape Town. Next week, we will film each person, posed as if for a classic studio portrait, and play the edited version of the interview to them as the camera rolls. I am hoping that they will react minimally to the story of their lives, as they sit. It may not work. I hope it does.

An exhibition at the Gallery Puta a.k.a. young artist Cameron Platter's house in Green Point. The exhibiting list includes some names not seen much lately - Bridget `Baker, Peet Pienaar. Andrew Lamprecht's piece, in an edition of three, is a performance of washing and drying martini glasses in immaculate white jacketed style. At least one of the edition is purchased to be performed at a future event. Matt Hindley shows a block of type reading NO CONTENT on the wall, a projection which constantly mutates as martini sipping guests interfere with the projection line. A notice above two holes in a wall instruct guests to remove all rings, bangles and watches and thrust their arms through the holes. Those who comply find their hidden extremities treated to a layering of something heated and soft - a hot peach wax treatment from Bridget Baker.

Malcolm Payne's name was on the exhibitor's list last night but I hadn't spotted his piece. Inquiries reveal it was a butt plug, worn by Cameron Platter for one hour under instruction from Payne, and named after a certain Johannesburg art academic who had criticised Payne's work in an article on conceptual art.

Sanell Aggenbach's show 'Blank' opens at the AVA. The major piece is 'The Collective', thirteen almost life sized black sheep turned towards a circular speaker on the far wall from which no sound comes. The sheep are convincingly solid looking, their 'wool' a matt black plush fabric, their heads tilted as if they are straining to hear a message which is no longer being broadcast.

In an artist's statement, Aggenbach says this body of work is based on a re-evaluation of the Afrikaner in a democratic society and addresses the Afrikaner youth's disenchantment with its cultural heritage.

Monkey Films are producing my piece for the Transfers show. Clare van Zyl is running everything with amazing efficiency. At a meeting at Monkey this morning, audio visual expert Tim Atkinson tells me I will not be able to put DVD projectors on their sides to project my images as I had wanted to, so they would be portrait format, vertical rather than horizontal as in conventional video projection. If this is done, says Tim, the lamps in the projectors will burn out fast. Email this disappointing news to Brussels.

The studio shoot is today. An email back from Brussels says turning the projectors on their sides is no problem for them. What a relief! The morning is spent setting up the backdrop and considering the various props available for the six 'episodes'. I am so excited! Director of Photography Michael Buckley is one of the top DOPs in the country. The camera will be turned on its side to take advantage of the full negative - we are using 35 mm film rather than video - and the picture quality should be excellent.

The subjects of the portraits arrive at 45 minute intervals, each dressed for the occasion. They all look great. The shoot seems to go well, with each person reacting to hearing their story played back to them a little differently - or in one case, maintaining the same position with no change in facial expression all the way through. We won't really know how they come out until the film has been processed and the edited tapes matched to the visuals.

Tonight is Terry Kurgan's opening at the Bell Roberts. On a series of four silk screens of ascending sizes hung at intervals one behind the other, a blonde haired little girl - Kurgan's daughter Jessica - skips in extreme slow motion, eventually exiting at screen left only to reappear later from screen right. In her absence, the stone wall in front of which she has skipped is suffused with a soft stain of the red of her sweater - it seems a trace has been left of her presence.

Morning with Craig Parker in the Videolab grading the colour on the film we took yesterday. Get a cricked neck from having to look at the monitors on their sides the whole time because the camera was used on its side.

Back at Videolab to match sound to image. The colour is beautiful! I think the series is working, but it's too new to be sure. Will have to wait for a final decision till I see it up on the wall at Bozar in Brussels.