burn (Or, The Second Law of Thermodynamics)

Projection performance, 8mm-film, 16mm-projector

USA 2004

“[...] Bradley Eros pulls sections of an 8mm pornographic film by hand through the gate of a 16mm projector. The larger gate of the 16mm projector reveals multiple still frames of the smaller 8mm film at once, rather than isolating single frames and animating them into illusory movement as in normal projection. The film’s passage through the projector is hesitating, jerky, inconsistent; segments of the film are held in the gate for us to ponder, until they begin to bubble, melt, split and finally burn up in the heat of the projector lamp. Accompanying this imagery is Robert De Niro’s intense, brooding voiceover narration from the film Taxi Driver 1976; De Niro’ s character speaks of cleansing and purification in brutal, violent terms appropriate to the spectacle unfolding on screen.” (Walley 2011: 241)

Bradley Eros born in Fairfield, Illinois 1952, lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reference

Jonathan Walley, “‘Not an Image of the Death of Film’: Contemporary Expanded Cinema and Experimental Film,” in Expanded Cinema. Art, Performance, Film, eds. A.L. Rees, Duncan White, Steven Ball and David Curtis (London: Tate, 2011), pp. 241–251.

Link

http://www.microscopegallery.com/?page_id=3443