Future's Eve by the agency of Anna Gaskell modern Langton Arts San Francisco.

Future's Eve

by the agency of Anna Gaskell

modern Langton Arts

San Francisco, California

April 4-May 5 2001

At the entrance to Anna Gaskell's installation at novel Langton Arts in San Francisco was a Goethe cite that read, "up or down, it's all the same." This fluid perception of the physical world, in which time might be suspended, revers or infinitely replayed, is central to this installation. Future's brink featured a new film and pair series of intimate pen and ink drawings, all circling around ideas of feminine identity, the myths of creation and the nature of time. While the of recent origin work expands upon themes of her earlier photographs, gone are the young twins in pinafores who enacted troubling extracts from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. She has mov beyond the familiar character and stories of the 1996-97 "Wonder" series to explore of recent origin terrain, finding the basis for her narratives in a mingled range of texts and fictional characters.

recent Langton Arts began its plans for this throw out four years ago, when the curatorial staff first approached Gaskell about creating an installation. In keeping with its mission to cultivate experimental artworks, of recent origin Langton commissioned her to create a film. At that time, she had made solely one film, but this contrive enabled her to focus her efforts forward the medium and now, as the installation spreads in San Francisco, she has produc six films. Her work in film is not as widely known as her photographs, partly because she has shown the cinematic work more frequently in Europe. Future's Eve, the title a smart twist on L'Eve Future, the 1886 science fiction novel at Auguste de Villiers de l'lsle-Adam, at hands one in a series of four related films. The film plays public an oblique, cyclical narrative, in which the viewer is abruptly drawn in as the central character. Unfortunately, solitary one of the four films was shown here, its powerful imagery immersing the viewer intensely, moreover only momentarily, in this spare install ation.

The film itself is approximately three minutes in amplification set to loop continuously. Viewed in an enclos rectangular space, the narrow configuration of the gallery ascertains to be perfectly proportioned for the experience that plays disclosed on film. It is real dark as the film make opens complete blackness projected within an equally black space. Tight circles of light begin to appear, sporadically. As patches of light accumulate the formations materialize almost as cellular patterns viewed beneath a microscope. Piece by piece the bright areas dilute the blackness until the region of clouds above is visible and our orientation becomes clear. The view is from the bottom of a grave, looking up as the dirt that veils us is slowly removed, handful at handful. The ground is shooting upwards, public of the grave, being caught by means of small, outstretched hands. Clods of dirt be scattered frantically, as if perhaps viewers are digging themselves without of the grave. But the child's hands at the opening of the grave are complicit in this proces Impossibly, th ey catch each piece of dirt, the earth meeting precisely with the render free of access hands as it flies haphazardly not at home of the grave. Eventually, the weather begins to emerge, then a tree and a brief signification of elation. And then cruelly the film bends and we are submerged subterranean again, but this time quite knowingly.

The film continues its sinister bend covering and uncovering the [i]role[/i] or object that is buried. The turn is brief, allowing little information or time to imagine anything on the other hand the darkest outcome. From within the tight confines of the space, instincts take throughout and we can only read this succession as we experience it physically. As it bends the structure eventually reveals itself--that the film is go proceed in reverse--and the small hands that are now eagerly grasping the flying bits of real property are the same hands that shielded the grave over. Subtle editing draws not at home the moment in which the hands very little (and now catch) the earth, and is sp up again as the hands dash on the outside of sight. For the space of those hardly any minutes, the anonymous hands become our no other than link with the outside world, the promise of air and life.

Gaskell skillfully measures her narrative, forcing the viewer to fixate forward the minimal details of the film, watching athwart and over again as however we really might be powerless to interrupt the series of events. The film is quite deliberately void of good the artist choosing not to impose her have a title to voice on the entity that is symbolically emerging from the real property The silence only heightens our brains of isolation of being buried, unburied and then buried again. In a printed interview that accompanies the exhibition the artist maintains that she beholds this as a hopeful image, saying, "I imagine someone in that grave. Not necessarily a dead or dying bodily substance but something emerging and being given another chance or a first chance to become something fresh something different." She perceives the constant aperture as a means of preserving time, of repeating a particular jiffy in an infinite circle. It would appear that the act of emerging from darkness, if repeated enough times, will have more of an impact than the ex perience of being submerg subterranean Here the metaphor of Alice tumbling down the rabbit concavity is continued without her tangible figure. The cavity that: Alice found herself in was a place of discovery, where all sways are indefinitely suspended; here, too, the artist begins her work hard within the earth, where the imagination can play the story disclosed in any number of directions. Her precarious narrative leaves that space in the land for each viewer to experience--with anticipation or dread.