ArtFocus 5 | Archive » Rodney Graham

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Rodney Graham // Phonokinetoscope

phonokinetoscope_stills1-rodney-graham

Ro d n e y Gr a h am Born (1949) and lives in Canada. Recent projects and solo exhibitions: Museum of Contemporary Art, Montreal (2006), Lisson Gallery, London (2007), BAWAG Foundation, Vienna (2007); recent group exhibitions: Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C. (2008), White Cube Gallery, Hoxton Square, London (2008), Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam (2008).

The installation Phonokinetoscope (2001–02) is composed of a five-minute long, 16 mm film loop, and a vinyl record with fifteen minutes of moody rock music performed by the artist himself. The projector is activated only when the needle touches the record, thus technically reproducing Thomas Edison’s cinematic phonokinetoscope experiment. The lack of synchronization between the film loop and the music leads to innumerable juxtapositions of sound and image, and creates random dramatic effects. The film takes place in Berlin’s Tiergarten park, where Rodney Graham reenacts the first acid trip taken by the synthesizer of LSD, Dr. Albert Hofmann, in 1943. Graham is seen in the film riding a bicycle backwards – a hallucinogenic effect reminiscent of Hofmann’s original bike trip. As an interrogation of reality, the film examines representation as an external manifestation of an inner experience. Graham employs a combination of recorded image and sound to document his own experience of an altered reality.

Kirsten Pieroth