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Countenance

2002

4 channel video installation

Tinted b&w, 3 x mono

2 rooms, 4 channels

4 media players, 4 video projectors, 2 hifi audio speakers

Room 1: screen - 60 x 44 cm

Room 2: 3 rear projection screens – each 1.9 x 1.42 m

Brief Description

For Fiona Tan the concept of the archive holds crucial significance. For her installation Countenance the artist filmed over 200 portraits of Berlin inhabitants at work or at home. The portraits, arranged according to the professions of their subjects, are portrayed in virtually static poses so that the film gains the aesthetics of a series of photographs, whereby someone’s sudden slight movement can bring the image to life. This black and white film is a conscious reference to August Sander’s portfolio work ‘People of the 20th Century’. However, Fiona Tan transforms this encyclopaedically arranged investigation into a sociological study of people in a city specifically characterised by the growing together of east and west. By dispensing with plot and contextual description she emphasises the physical presence of those portrayed and allows the film image to breath. Commissioned by Documenta XI, Kassel.