RAGNAR KJARTANSSON
Figures in Landscape (Tuesday), 2018
single channel video
video, 24 hours
Edition of 6 plus 2 artist's proofs
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Figures in Landscape: A Time Piece Figures in Landscape is a week-long video, consisting of seven scenes, each 24 hours in duration, running in succession from midnight to midnight. Every...
Figures in Landscape: A Time Piece
Figures in Landscape is a week-long video, consisting of seven scenes, each 24 hours in duration, running in succession from midnight to midnight. Every night a new scene unfolds to represent the following day of the week. Each of the seven scenes has a distinct set or background, with hand-painted stages. All the scenes are recorded with a single camera at a straight angle without any camera movements or interruptions. There is no narrative, nothing happens. Simply the movement of a small number of people in white lab coats walking around in the landscape.
The piece is inspired by the feeling and idea of the space, the university, its function, and its faculty. It is a site-specific video inspired by the valiant goals of science counterpoised against the quotidian lives that are the driving force behind it. It is a work that hopefully will exist seamlessly alongside the faculty of health and medical science. These videos can be used anywhere in the building and function as both a clock and a screen saver that can be displayed on monitors in the elevator, the lobby, or corridors, so that people encounter them en route to lectures, meetings, and classes in the building.
Figures in Landscape: A Time Piece is a nod to heroic murals of science and prosperity, with a modern, mundane twist. It is the artist’s hope that this piece can be a somber, constantly changing presence in the building, one that creates new measurements for time and inspires the imagination.
Ragnar Kjartansson
Figures in Landscape is a week-long video, consisting of seven scenes, each 24 hours in duration, running in succession from midnight to midnight. Every night a new scene unfolds to represent the following day of the week. Each of the seven scenes has a distinct set or background, with hand-painted stages. All the scenes are recorded with a single camera at a straight angle without any camera movements or interruptions. There is no narrative, nothing happens. Simply the movement of a small number of people in white lab coats walking around in the landscape.
The piece is inspired by the feeling and idea of the space, the university, its function, and its faculty. It is a site-specific video inspired by the valiant goals of science counterpoised against the quotidian lives that are the driving force behind it. It is a work that hopefully will exist seamlessly alongside the faculty of health and medical science. These videos can be used anywhere in the building and function as both a clock and a screen saver that can be displayed on monitors in the elevator, the lobby, or corridors, so that people encounter them en route to lectures, meetings, and classes in the building.
Figures in Landscape: A Time Piece is a nod to heroic murals of science and prosperity, with a modern, mundane twist. It is the artist’s hope that this piece can be a somber, constantly changing presence in the building, one that creates new measurements for time and inspires the imagination.
Ragnar Kjartansson
