lâmina
2021
Marissa Lee Benedict and David Rueter
Video installation; installation views at ︎︎︎um trabalho um texto.
Video documentation linked here.
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Commissioned for the São Paulo project space ︎︎︎um trabalho um texto (one work one text), lâmina is a one-night video work – a singular gesture – exhibited in parallel with a text by curator João Paulo Quintella.
Documenting two hands, tentatively, awkwardly, bringing two pieces of .07 mm pencil lead (graphite) close enough to spark an electric carbon-arc – an early form of spark lighting used for projecting films – before burning out, the work tightly loops together the history of moving image and its means of production.
This tight loop loosens over the course of the evening with a plie-up of strange and unexpected encounters: between the congenial atmosphere of the project space and the passing audience on the street; between the humming fan of a digital projector and the roar of traffic; between the loud squealing kisses of tiny graphite pencil lead rods, powered by a motorcycle battery, burning into light; and between the projected image of a beach at the mouth of a major colonial shipping channel, and the threshold of a garage door.
The exhibition contract for lâmina dictates that this version of the video (not including documentation of the video in situ) will only be publicly shown once (from sunset 18:04:00 to midnight on 26 September 2020 R. Rocha, 386 - Bela Vista, São Paulo, 013300-000, Brazil).