Stemma

Tree, The Black Estate, HD Video, runtime: 10 minutes

The collaborative team, The Black Estate, makes use of a Neo-Victorian aesthetic to contemplate an imagined nature in Stemma – a series of HD animations and objects at Claire Oliver.

Each video depicts a slowly shifting landscape: a snowy mountain range, a barren tree stirring in the wind. The subject and its transformations bring to mind Jennifer Steinkamp’s tree animations, such as Eye Catching 1. But whereas technology is at the forefront of Steinkamp’s imagery, Black Estate emphasizes the hand in the work. The images are created from ink brush drawings, and then vignetted. This darkening of the edges is a look that was popular in Victorian etchings, (intended to draw the viewer into an intimate scene), and often recreated in early films. Black Estate also picks up a trick from vaudeville: moving the foreground imagery to create a sense of motion.

The “video objects” are presented as curiosities. What looks like wooden lens housings from old view cameras are positioned face up, for the viewer to peer into the lens to see a tiny, black and white, looping animation. The experience is peculiar – by looking into the lens of the camera, one might expect to see the eye of the photographer. Instead, you see a seething organic animation, like the innards of an imaginary creature.

The pacing of the works is slow, and there is no dramatic action. Aside from some weather phenomenon, “nothing happens” in these videos, and they require the viewer to patiently watch for ten minutes to find that out for certain. What the work offers instead is far richer: the potential to imagine a slower time of small amazements.

The overriding aesthetic is charmingly awkward, with as many references to 19th century technology as there are to 21st. But, while the Victorian sensibility is certainly inspired by nature, Victorians were by no means environmentalists. The primary intent behind this work, (according the press release), is the artists’ concern for the current state of our environment. With this in mind, it becomes troubling to see Black Estate present nature as beautified and contained, like a butterfly collection under glass, captured for the viewer’s contemplation.

Stemma is closing soon (3/8), but it is well documented at the gallery website.

The Black Estate “Stemma” at Claire Oliver
Feb 7th, 2008 to Mar 8th, 2008

513 W 26th St
New York (Chelsea)

~ by sheriwills on March 6, 2008.