Venice/Berlin Trip: Delphine Reist, Averse

08Dec09

Delphine Reist’s simple piece at the Pompidou kept me oddly transfixed for such a simple and short narrative. The five-minute video piece featured a single fixed shot of a non-descript white room lit by fluorescent lights. The only action within the frame was of these long fluorescent bulbs occasionally dropping to the ground and shattering. The room gradually grew darker as more bulbs fell and broke, and eventually fell into complete darkness before looping again.

The narrative described in words is rather plain, and one argument might be that once the viewer sees several of these fluorescent bulbs fall, he or she could guess the rest automatically. Part of this is true—the conclusion of the room falling completely dark seems rather inevitable.

However, each time they did something a little different—sometimes they would fall on one end and unceremoniously fall flat on the ground, breaking. Other times they would continually bounce from end to end, and would take several long moments to finally shatter. After the first several bulbs had fallen I was a proven sucker for the cheap entertainment of the bulb crushing on the ground.  The outcome is expected, and yet we are left in suspense as to exactly when and exactly which piece will fall down.

There was also an element of sophomoric fun with the breaking fluorescent bulbs; something about it was quite viscerally satisfying. You can imagine the roots of such a pleasure—sometimes kids break stuff just for the hell of it (especially fluorescent bulbs). The process is ultimately destructive, both in the factual sense of the bulbs breaking and in the fact that the space continually becomes more vague and less described by the light—and yet one (or at least I) cannot help but be entertained each time by the bulbs falling, and in turn waiting for the next one to fall.

Within that context, both the audio and the visual aspects are exiting. The sound is absolutely unique to the action of the bulb falling, and the pattern is unmistakable; first, a quick slipping sound of the tube falling out of its casing, then the relative cacophony of its inevitable bouncing and shattering.

Reist has already effectively cornered our attention on a mundane subject. These things are dropping, but Reist’s point is masked beyond this. For the first several minutes, change is imperceptible within the space in terms of general construction and light—even though lights are falling, there doesn’t seem to be any dramatic change in the lighting itself. Thus the viewer happily chugs along with the action. However, as the video draws closer to the end, real change can be noticed. For the last several lights, every bulb that drops darkens the room more, making the space less defined. In the last two or three, the remaining lights seem to be striving to light the whole space, and as each drops whole sections of the frame drop into nondescript blackness, and finally the whole frame is black. Despite the fact that conclusion could have already been drawn, it seems to sneak up on the viewer regardless.

The descent into darkness nearing the end of the piece left me feeling much different about what I saw throughout the video. Instead of feeling a certain mischievous joy of watching things break, the destructive aspect of the piece came much more into light. Instead of the shattering tubes being a source of entertainment, nearing the end I almost wanted them to stop breaking, because the room was losing definition and although the room was a sterilized white in the first place, it felt more comforting to be involved with some well-defined space as opposed to no space at all. Instead of being entertaining, the conclusion brought to bear a sense of decay and destruction into the video—something that was present throughout but not emphasized with vigor until the end.

Beyond just eliminating the light sources within the video, the conclusion also brought the entire space in which the video was installed into darkness, since the video itself was the light source for the entire space. This brings the viewer even more into the video, as the light for the space and the light within the video are intrinsically connected, something that only comes to attention as the video draws to a close.

With this we are left with a piece of art that is both extremely simple and bare and yet constructs a strangely convincing story for the viewer. The use of fluorescent bulbs in such a nondescript setting might speak to the decay of urban buildings and constructs. Yet in contrast the process of the bulbs falling recalls the natural process of rain falling. In this sense there are many different possibilities and routes of interpretation that could be taken. The most essential part of this piece I took away was that Reist subverted my sense of entertainment into something wholly different.

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