LIGHT SHOW
curated by Henrietta Hamilton, Robert Fraser & Vaughn Sadie
BANK Gallery, Durban South Africa,
2008
The Birds, 2008
16mm film, aluminum
4000 x 2200 x 50 mm
The Birds is the most recent in a series of woven works by Siemon Allen. Constructed with recycled strands of 16 mm film from a rare copy ol Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1962); Alien has scaled the work in such a way that the weaving contains the entire film. Faded to a reddish hue, the used cut up film stock becomes the raw material for a massive hand-woven panel. Rather than presented in the carefully controlled sequence that produces the illusion of motion, the film stills become frames in a grid construction that converses in the language of painting.
Allen has for some time been interested in appropriating high tech materials such as videotape, audio recording tape, and movie film for use in low-tech processes. In this simple grid weave the vertical axis interferes with the horizontal. A kind of simultaneous perception of the film replaces what was once a sequential reading. Also, with the light of the movie projector's blinding halogen bulb now absent, the original narrative becomes partially concealed.
In the original film Hitchcock's characters struggle against a violence that is disturbingly random and remains ultimately inexplicable. It is a kind of apocalyptic vision with an ending scene of uneasy calm and uncertain future. It is a story about barricades, fear, and unanswered questions.
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