“The function of the motion-picture screen is to display a world of fantasy and entertainment without the screen being obvious.”

On “Screen Masking, Surrounds, and Screen Draperies” in Don v. Kloepfel, Motion-Picture Projection and Theatre Presentation Manual, 1969.

The point of departure for this premiere performance was the obliteration, literally the blotting-out, of the cinematic object of projection. Projection performance as the art par excellence of obstructing, concealing, and masking absolutely nothing but itself. Obliteration: in which the spectacle of the apparatus is to be screened, or better screened-out, in the negative relief of a self-cancellation vis-à-vis nothing but the disciplinary application of a cinematic standard.

Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder stage the scene of film as orphaned object through the temporal labor of moving image installation. Collaborators since 2000, Gibson and Recoder unite the rich traditions of the experimental film, particularly its structuralist and materialist strands, and the multi-modal sensibility of expanded cinema that emerged in the 1960s, in which the moving image was woven into the labile space of performance, sound and audience interaction. Based in New York, Gibson and Recoder have exhibited and performed internationally at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, The Kitchen, Sundance Film Festival, CATE, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Sagamore, Toronto International Film Festival, Tate Modern, Viennale, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Reina Sofia, Nam June Paik Art Center, Yokohama Museum of Art, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art. Gibson + Recoder are represented by Robischon Gallery, for more information please see www.gibsonrecoder.com

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The performance was part of the International Conference ABANDON, a collaboration between World Picture and the ICI Berlin. The conference fed into the ICI’s Core Project ERRANS and was supported by the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and the Department of Italian at the University of Cambridge.

The event, like all events at the ICI Berlin, is open to the public, free of charge. The audience is presumed to consent to a possible recording on the part of the ICI Berlin. If you would like to attend the event yet might require assistance, please contact Event Management.