whiteonwhite:algorithmicthriller
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If you have to see one exhibition in London... Let it be whiteonwhite:algorithmicthriller at Haunch of Venison. Bonus! You can then climb up the stairs and see Places,strange and quiet, some 40 large-scale and spectacular photos that filmmaker Wim Wenders shot between 1983 and 2011.
The exhibition by artist Eve Sussman and Rufus Corporation centers around whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir a thriller/scifi movie that follows a geophysicist code writer stuck in a futuristic, cold and unwelcoming city. If you're afraid of experimental fiction (i know i am), this film should win you over. whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir runs endlessly, editing live in real time, with no beginning, middle or end, never repeating the same way twice. The movie is so extraordinarily beautiful and puzzling that i will go back and see it today, tomorrow again and probably over the weekend as well. A level of control is granted to a computer software that edits the film in real time, live as you are sitting in the screening room. The machine culls scenes from a server loaded with 2637 video clips, creating suspense through unexpected juxtapositions. The implied narrative is communicated through voiceovers, wire tapped telephone conversations and snippets of a job interview between Mr. Holz and his prospective employer, Mr. White. It becomes evident that the character is controlled by a city and the code he is working on, as the course of the story is controlled by the code that edits the film.
whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir was created on an "expedition to unravel utopian promise" with a small crew, one American actor and local actors hired en route. The fictional location is named - in a nod to Godard's 1965 science fiction film Alphaville - City-A. The place is a fusion of many places (mostly Soviet era (dys)utopian cities) encountered during the artists' journey in European Eastern countries.
This improvised film noir is accompanied by where the future throws a shadow over the land, a series of photographs shot by Simon Lee during production of whiteonwhite. These photos exemplify the idea of 'archival footage from the future' and contain a sense of time speeding by, as the impending future - implied through a contradictory metaphor of darkness as the past blows out to white - throws a shadow over the land. whiteonwhite:algorithmicthriller remains open at Haunch of Venison until 14 May 2011. |
