Omer Fast, Production Still from The Casting, 2007.
On The Casting, 2007
Omer Fast b.1972
The Casting was installed in a dark room, completely enclosed by walls except the entrance. The first thing that caught my eyes was the arrangement. The four screens are paired in two, hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, back to back so that two screens are facing the opposite sides of the room. Moreover, each screen was a different channel, so I spent more than thirty minutes watching the fourteen-minute work, each time on the opposite side. The video starts with the story of someone who is asked to improvise a story. In the story, he is a US army sergeant, and he recounts two different incidents: his German girl friend who hurts herself, and his accidental shooting of an Iraqi. At the end, he comes back to being an actor/scriptwriter selling his stories to producers. This composition, story inside of a story, first shows that the recollection may be real or not, and that when memories are recollected, they are apt to be altered and remade.
In addition to the frame-inside-another-frame format, the artist uses many other techniques to reveal various aspects of memory, the impact of it on a person, and the meaning of the act of telling one’s memory. The first one is the ambiguity of the narrator. He seems to be a sergeant who is talking to a psychotherapist about his traumatic experience at one time, and at another, he is an actor improvising. Moreover, the artist intentionally made the borderline between the stories of a German girlfriend and shooing an Iraqi so ambiguous and intertwined that it almost sounds like a single awkward and distorted memory.
What makes the work extremely interesting is the use of the four different channels of visions while there is only one continuous flow of sound. On one side, there are two screens, one of a protagonist telling the entire story, and the other of a listener whose identity is rather ambiguous. On the other side, there are two screens that feature the story of the protagonist. Moreover, these two video are still: the artist videotaped people who are frozen at each moment. He also shot the same scene at a different angle or focus. At first, the movie is overwhelming because there are so many things going on, but soon we realize that this is much closer to our experience, and our memory of it. The stillness of each scene is more effective than just a still photography because we can see the small movements that the actors cannot control, and I believe, that the artist left to be seen. On these screens, each scene changes ridiculously fast, in stark contrast to what is shown on the other side, simply a video of two guys telling and listening to a story. These features all together show that our memory of experience is the theatrical, often traumatic, and ambiguous collection of bits and pieces, and telling it puts us on the stage, giving us catharsis and relief.
In addition to the frame-inside-another-frame format, the artist uses many other techniques to reveal various aspects of memory, the impact of it on a person, and the meaning of the act of telling one’s memory. The first one is the ambiguity of the narrator. He seems to be a sergeant who is talking to a psychotherapist about his traumatic experience at one time, and at another, he is an actor improvising. Moreover, the artist intentionally made the borderline between the stories of a German girlfriend and shooing an Iraqi so ambiguous and intertwined that it almost sounds like a single awkward and distorted memory.
What makes the work extremely interesting is the use of the four different channels of visions while there is only one continuous flow of sound. On one side, there are two screens, one of a protagonist telling the entire story, and the other of a listener whose identity is rather ambiguous. On the other side, there are two screens that feature the story of the protagonist. Moreover, these two video are still: the artist videotaped people who are frozen at each moment. He also shot the same scene at a different angle or focus. At first, the movie is overwhelming because there are so many things going on, but soon we realize that this is much closer to our experience, and our memory of it. The stillness of each scene is more effective than just a still photography because we can see the small movements that the actors cannot control, and I believe, that the artist left to be seen. On these screens, each scene changes ridiculously fast, in stark contrast to what is shown on the other side, simply a video of two guys telling and listening to a story. These features all together show that our memory of experience is the theatrical, often traumatic, and ambiguous collection of bits and pieces, and telling it puts us on the stage, giving us catharsis and relief.
1 comment:
This was one of my favorites at the Biennial as well. I agree that it was almost confusing at first because of the stories going back and forth, but after a while you realize how seamlessly its being done and you are able to follow pretty well.
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