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| Camera Opera
| 2008 |
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2 channel video installation | 11:50
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<< | Installation view, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, (photo by Richard-Max Tremblay) 1/17 | >> |
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Filmed on the set of a German current affairs television program, Camera Opera uses the metaphor of the stage and its drama to call attention to the television studio as a performative space. It makes evident the process of creating a dramatized social and political reality in the TV studio through the mechanisms used to stage the event. The montage challenges the stability of the “news” script and invites consideration of the simulated, constructed orientation of the television experience. By staging an exaggerated choreography of images the viewers’ attention is drawn to the system of representations evoked by performing the “news”. Camera Opera renders the mechanisms of filmic, news-like delivery bare, confronting us with the fictional mise-en-scène through which we access ‘reality’. The re-framing of the spectacle overflows its confines in Brechtian delight, creating a disorienting topology of televised space itself. An anchorwoman stands silent on set. The scene appears as a moment before broadcast held in suspension. The camera operators are directed through a series of choreographed movements, circling around the studio, focusing on the anchorwoman and panning out to expose the set, equipment, lighting, audience seating and each-other. Strauss waltzes are piped into the studio to reinforce the choreography. The stillness of the anchorwoman amplifies the roles played by the cameras, underlining their status as the subject and denying their role of relaying information. Filmed on location and with the participation of studio staff of n-tv Berlin |
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Camera Opera Credits: Journalist: Pamela Schlatterer Camera operators: Karsten Stoll, Pit Fischer, Sven Ickerodt, Karsten Hillmer Crane operator: Matthias Wahle Assistant director: Götz Filenius Video-engineer: Max Wallrabe Lighting: Christian Kaminski Production: David Jacobs Production assistant: Daniel Sippel Editor: Mathieu-Bouchard-Malo Funding: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Canada Council for the Arts, OBORO New Media Lab Production Assistance Program |