Kerry Tribe

Here & Elsewhere
Video installation, two-channel, 10:30 min., synchronized, 2002

In Kerry Tribe’s two-channel video installation Here & Elsewhere, a serious-looking young girl answers the questions of an older man, who always remains out of frame. The two people are the British film critic and theorist Peter Wollen and his ten-year-old daughter Audrey. Their conversation is about history and memory; they touch upon subjects such as intersubjectivity, temporality, epistemology, and photography – all subjects that do not really belong to the everyday life of a ten-year-old girl.

She answers all the questions with astonishing wisdom, yet without sounding at all precocious. Michael Wollen’s questions are inspired from France tour détour deux enfants (1977/1978), a twelve-part experimental video series (1), which Jean Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville made for television in the 1970s. In the pauses in their conversation one sees the girl at home as she goes about her everyday activities (brushing her teeth, etc.), views of Los Angeles or its environs.

The video installation consists of two synchronised videos projected in parallel. In the centre, where the frames of the two videos meet, a vertical border is created, which is more visible at some points than others. The two images often show the same room, but are slightly staggered. This double image, which is slightly altered temporally and spatially, underlines the subjects about which the man and the girl are speaking. The gaps, but also the continuity, the friction and overlapping that result from the simultaneity of the two images emphasise the girl’s efforts to find coherent formulations for concepts such as time, space, image, and identity.

Inke Arns, based partly on a text by the artist

(1) For a detailed description and video excerpts, see www.newmedia-art.org, 5.3.2007


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