Determination (4)

This video image is projected life-size on a wall. It’s an eight-minute, real-time recording, appearing on a white surface, then disappearing and repeating itself without end; very important to realise: this is not a loop. We are confronted heads on with a family (a man, a woman, 2 little children) running towards us, but on the spot, without actually moving closer. The video projection touches the ground surface; the family is actually present in the room on equal terms with the audience. The unusual thing about this work is that the running of this family seems senseless: nothing in the image indicates that they are running away of something (e.g. to catch a train). The absence of luggage and coats makes an escape equally incredible. Nevertheless the images seem to express a compulsive movement. The young couple was asked to keep running for a single eight-minute take with their 3 and 5 year old daughters. The youngest one is carried; the other girl is running in the front in a fluttering skirt. The long shot wasn’t edited; they are eight real-time minutes, eight minutes of growing more and more tired, eight minutes of being forced to go on by others. Time here is not the ageless vacuum of ’Sub-’, but rather emphatically its own self: Time.