condenser | 2019 | video
three channel video installation
Condenser is a multi-channel video installation featuring Maine-based artist and dancer Riley Watts that extends a strategy developed in Beck’s photographic project “Double Document.” Beck took still photographs and video of Watts performing from above. He printed and placed select images on the floor and Watts re-executed the original movements on top, distressing and tearing the prints. Beck backlit the distressed prints with the original video footage, re-filming the prints with a video camera directly opposite the projector, a setup that evokes a darkroom enlarger (a condenser compresses light en routeto a negative). The finished work is projected on suspended plexiglass. Like “Double Document,” Condenser explores photography's relationship to performance and the abstract body, incorporating a new form of duration to expand on its blurring of flat and sculptural space.
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