Interlude


Interlude

2003. 5' 09"

Interlude was filmed during a live performance at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, Germany in February 2003. The work shows images of the audience filmed during a performance with an infrared camera. At the end of the performance actors from the theatre's ensemble staged a live protest action against the impending war with Iraq in the foyer of the theatre.

Interlude combines documentary footage of the actual events with aspects of image manipulation echoing a reportage style aesthetic, which imparts a sense of the 'staging of reality'. The work presents the viewer with an unusual contrast, as the performance on stage remains unseen. Instead of the play, we see a live action being staged in the foyer of the theatre. As the two events, play and protest, overlap each other so the two different spaces, auditorium and foyer, are edited interchangeably presenting a juxtaposition of parallel real-time. While the audience watches the play the actors are seen preparing themselves as victims of war. The work evokes a sense of a collective memory through photographic style freeze-framing mid- action and through effects enhanced images, which are reminiscent of documented images of war. When the audience finally emerges from the dark space of the auditorium into the foyer it is as if the transition signals a return to the real, except for the encounter with a group of  "dead bodies"  spread in the foyer.


   
 

For The Very First Time

For the Very First Time
 

1999. Original : wide-screen format 16:9. DV and Beta SP. Pal, mono, colour.  4’43”

For The Very First Time portrays three young women absorbed in the activity of sniffing the scent of flowers. Each woman is framed against a field of colour consisting of red, yellow and mauve tulips. The atmosphere of ectasy is enhanced by the hyper-real colours and sound. “The simple pleasure of smelling a flower is amplified through repetition and reaches a climatic, almost orgasmic, conclusion. Lavish colour heightens the sumptuous nature of the subject.”  (Tate Modern brochure for Performing Bodies)


Necking


Necking

1997. Beta SP, PAL, colour, mono, 1’40”

NECKING was filmed in a school gymnasium and shows a group of young women playing a game called ‘passing the apple’. The self-consciousness of the female participants overshadows the pleasure of physical interaction and signals sexual awareness.

“Over the last few years, Monika Oechsler has made a number of video works which explore the dynamics of group behaviour (especially between adolescent girls). In this charming and engaging tape, a traditional playground game becomes a site of contradictory emotions, confronting individual identity and peer interaction, shyness and sexuality.” (from the UK/NY brochure , published by Film and Video Umbrella, London)


STRIP


STRIP

1997, silent. DV Pal & Beta SP

STRIP portrays girls aged eight to fourteen, stripping and reassembling handguns whilst being blind-folded. The video was filmed before the changes of the British gun law took effect. Filming took place at the only Home Office approved British gun-club licensed to offer membership to children from the age of eight. The girl’s expert and deft handling of guns unfolds through slow motion dissolves.

The individual sequences are edited in reversed motion and back to front, thereby merging the start and finish of the action into an ongoing loop. Using editing as a tool to change our perception of linear time the work suggests that certain actions are self perpetuating. The skill required for expert gun stripping is to complete the process each time in exactly the same fashion. In contrast to this, the work with its dream-like juxtaposition of slowed-down images exudes a haunting quality, asking questions concerning notions of the innocence of childhood. “The focus remains on the actions of the girls: we never see their faces. This is a violent striptease, performed for the locked gaze of the viewer. This technique cuts out the individual personalities involved. The focus is on the process, the jarring collision between pre-adolescence and violence, the nagging sense of foreboding.”
(from the catalogue WarningShots! , text by Vaughan Allen, Royal Armouries)