Life as C.B.
digital video installation
2015Life as C.B. was made whilst in residence at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. Back home in Tasmania I was employed as a video editor at the Museum of Old and New Art on the work The Life of C.B. The work engaged Christian Boltanski in an eight year commission which continuously records his studio in Paris and streams the footage to the musuem in Tasmania - one camera live, one with a 12 hour delay and one a loop of ‘highlights’ from the past month. I worked with a team that complied these highlights loops.
Here in Paris as an artist in my own right I put myself in Boltanski’s shoes, re-arranging my studio to mimic his own and re-enacting his working practice from memory. As Boltanski himself claims ‘I just sit around all day waiting for ideas to come to me’.
He shuffles into frame, switches on the aircon and removes his jacket. Most of the day is spent blankly lost in thought or speaking on the phone. Occasionally in a moment of self-awareness he will glance up and we will lock eyes. I sit on the other side of the screen, on the other side of the world, scrubbing through his movements. On my days off I got into my studio and do much the same.
images1. video still
2. installation image from Somewhere, Away, curated by Liam James, Arts Tasmania