'I was imagining machines as a variety of anthropomorphic species, subject to anthropologic and ethnographic study and playing out lives that affect many other lives in every moment. I decided to treat these objects as I would a foreign species. Culturally preserved, they stand[1] here ready to be viewed, ready to project, shaping a space that I am in bodily. I wanted to know the characteristics of these species, how they interact, how I interact with them, how they shape my approach to and perception of the world.'[2]
This curiosity began a body of work titled Machinate: a projection in two movements, where the two movements refer to analogue and digital media, and one of the analogue investigations resulted in Kiss.
Working structurally, I started Kiss by first identifying what I believed to be properties particular to the medium of film — the 'realism' of the representation of the human figure; the portrayal of characteristics and gesture in high-image definition; the emotional pull into the image that is not cool and distancing as with digital images; the ability to follow the image analogically frame by frame in real time and space; and, the limitation of what film can or cannot do compared to what can be done infinitely with computerized media. I then identified a general assumption that film projection is made of solely one projector presenting one representational image. By using two projectors to explore this assumption the medium defined the theme and the kiss started from the literal meeting of the two projector lights.
Within Kiss, the space between the two figures seethes with a vibrant energy, an intriguing aura that confuses our sense perception. There is a space, an energy there that cannot be explained. It is not that it is literally the place where the two lights of each projector meet. It is also not the contradiction that nothing is literally happening in this space or that on a representational level this space is unexplainable. Yet, everything is concentrated in this space. It's something to do with what I call analogue virtuality where something is toggling between presence and absence and we experience both at the same time. This virtual is not new nor is it solely found in computer media. It has always existed and may be interpreted as a physical representation of what in Buddhist teaching is called 'illusion' or 'self-delusion'.
[1] 'Everywhere, everything is ordered to stand by, to be immediately at hand, indeed to stand there just so that it may be on call for a further ordering. Whatever is ordered about in this way has its own standing. We call it the standing reserve [Bestand]... Seen in terms of the standing reserve, the machine is completely unautonomous, for it has its standing only from the ordering of the orderable.' Martin Heidegger
[2] Excerpted from the artist's statement for Machinate: a projection in two movements.
Kiss: a film loop for two projectors, 1999. Installation. Two 16mm film projectors, film loops, metal gas piping stands, cotton screen.
Laiwan was born in Zimbabwe of Chinese parents. She immigrated to Canada in 1977 to leave the war in Rhodesia. She is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Vancouver, BC. A graduate of Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Laiwan started the OR Gallery in Vancouver in 1983. She has since initiated various curatorial projects in Canada and Zimbabwe, participated in a variety of group and solo exhibitions and was an activist in community-based organizing. Her writing can be found in arts and community publications and her book distance of distinct vision was published by the Western Front in 1992. In September 1998 Articule Gallery in Montreal released a publication examining her bookwork and collages. She received her Master of Fine Arts degree in May 1999 and now teaches sessionally at the School for Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University. Her multi-media installation Machinate: a projection in two movements was first installed at the Video In Studios, Vancouver [May 1999] and it has traveled to Gallery 101, Ottawa [September 1999]. The website can be visited at http://www.gallery101.org/machinate.htm
