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Self control is an inexhaustible source of speculation. When do you have everything 'under control'? And what could that mean? What's more, it provokes curiosity about the question as to who is the ultimately competent authority able to offer a reasonable comment on that. Because, once you start thinking about 'self control', that 'self' can no longer apply. In that self reflection, that duplication, everything points to a hole, an absence, the fact that 'something' is missing. Perhaps what is missing is your 'self awareness'. And self awareness is, of course, directly related to the concept of control. Beauty arises, however, from the fact that precisely the absence of control gives it form and identity. The hole in your powers of observation is the ultimate adornment, your evidence of reality, your unique bar code, the evidence that there is no-one else like you. You could say that the whole of psychoanalysis began with speculations about that hole. Because you always need someone else to tell you what you have missed. This phenomenon is actually the built-in guarantee the we need each other and it is truly strange that we still have to get used to this basic principle of subjectivity. Science is still fighting with that subjectivity and keeps hoping that it will one day be able to make statements that will be valid always and everywhere. But to be able to make such statements, you will always have to call upon the incomplete and irresolute character of language. You can feel it in your bones that that sought after objectivity will never be achieved, unless you make subtle nuances in the observation and incorporate other dimensions of communication into your argumentation. For example, by combining deliberations with images, text and sound, etcetera. Computer systems and software are often a first step in the direction of such a complex, integrated observation and in this way they open up the possibilities of totally new conditions of self awareness and as a result, new identities based on the nuances in observation. Hill is an artist who wants to help you in that movement towards nuance. In this installation, which comprises four monitors on trolleys which can be moved away from each other, he invites the viewer to 'self control'. You can move the trollies by hand and set them where you will. With the restriction, however, that the four video monitors must be visible. The images on the monitors show the interior of a space that looks most like a little garden house. The jolting and sliding camera movements give the impression that the filmer dropped the camera and that control of the picture is lost now and then. If the monitors represent the four senses, then the viewer is the missing fifth sense.
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Willem van Weelden
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4 32” monitors, , 4 laserdisc players, 4 custom made carts, 1 custom made synchronizer
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1 9 9 6 
