Closed Circuit, 2013
Sasha Pirker
16mm film installation, 3 min loop, with Polaroid print
Austria 2013
A dual reflection on appearance and disappearance, Pirker’s installation draws on chance parallels between two ‘obsolete’ analog mediums – 16mm film and Polaroid photography. A Polaroid photograph takes three minutes to develop, the same duration of a 100ft roll of 16mm film. In Closed Circuit, 2013, Pirker films the gradual appearance of a Polaroid image, which turns out to be the filmmaker herself pointing a Bolex camera towards the viewer. Filming the photochemical process allows the temporal regimes and material substrate of both mediums to merge into a hybrid form, with the original image, displayed alongside the 16mm projection, creating a tension between still and moving, the original and the record. The intimacy of the image folds the viewer into its self-reflexive circularity, as his/her gaze meets that of the camera lens. (Kim Knowles)
Not to be confused with a swan song, Closed Circuit articulates itself as a declaration of love for and a manifestation of an analog material, which is rapidly mutating to a niche format, and yet still manages to lead an impressive parallel life alongside the currently dominant digital format. (Dietmar Schwärzler)
Sasha Pirker, born 1969 in Vienna, Austria, lives and works in Vienna.
