She rolls longitudinally down a sand dune. Again, and again, and again… The images have been shot from different angles, different distances. Is she really going downhill that fast or have the images been speeded up? Through the projection the image becomes larger than life. She rolls, and rolls, and rolls… It is a continuous rolling and falling which seems unable to come to rest, a mechanical constant motion which nevertheless does not seem to control the situation. Caught in the repetition, the image is contrasted with that of a motionless hand. This is accompanied by a sound that is reminiscent of a record player when the needle is stuck in the last groove: a repetitive, softly swishing sound. As with the sequence of the figure rolling by, there is an association with the temporal, the ephemeral, that 'which passes'. Somewhere else in the building headphones that produce quite different sounds are available. The images in your memory are now mixed with much more pronounced sounds, which colour and change the memory. This is a recurring theme in Tan's work: time, temporality, transience, not just of experiences but of memories as well. She herself calls this piece “a mixture of photography – the still image – and film” where she strips a dramatic moment of its drama by using repetition while at the same time making the falling figure more vulnerable, more fragile. Those are the contrasts that interest Tan and this is how she visualizes some of her views on how we process images and how editing influences the images we see. Not just while we are watching, but in our memories as well.
– Carla Hoekendijk
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Fiona Tan ° 1966, Pekan Baru (Indonesië)
Lives and works in Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
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