Staging Silence (2)

Hans Op de Beeck's film Staging Silence (2) is based around abstract, archetypal settings that lingered in the memory of the artist as the common denominator of the many similar public places he has experienced. The video images themselves are both ridiculous and serious, just like the eclectic mix of pictures in our minds. The decision to film in black and white heightens this ambiguity: the theatre like approach of the video invokes the legacy of slapstick, as well as the insidious suspense and latent derailment of film noir. The title refers to the staging of such dormant decors where, in the absence of people, the spectator can project himself as the lone protagonist.

Memory images are disproportionate mixtures of concrete information and fantasies, and in this film they materialise before the spectator's eyes through anonymous tinkering and improvising hands. Arms and hands appear and disappear at random, manipulating banal objects, scale representations and artificial lighting into alienating yet recognisable locations. These places are no more or less than animated decors for possible stories, evocative visual propositions to the spectator. Op de Beeck's film is accompanied by a score which, inspired by the images themselves, has been composed by composer-musician Scanner (UK).