documenta 10, 1997
21 June - 28 September 1997, Kassel, Germany. Artistic director: Catherine David. 138 participants at the exhibition. 100 Days - 100 Guests.
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* Trinidad & Tobago. Lives in New York and Gent.
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. 1995-97
Video, 68 min
Beware! In playing the phantom you become one, 1995-97
Video-library in collaboration with Herman Asselberghs
Museum Fridericianum
Known for his ethnographic videos with their effective critique of Western ethnocentrism, Johan Grimonprez here carries out two projects about the way the media shape culture, history and reality today.
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1995-97) is a video film structured in two fifty-minute parts, presented in the form of an installation The guiding visual thread of the piece is the almost exhaustive chronology of airplane highjackings in the world. The soundtrack is constituted of a fictive narrative inspired by two Don DeLillo novels - White Noise and Mao II - which, for Grimonprez, "highlight the value of the spectacular in our catastrophe culture". (...)
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y blends photographic, electronic, and digital images, interspersing reportage shots, clips from science fiction films, found footage, and reconstituted scenes filmed by the artist. The work denounces the media spectacle and seeks to detect the impact of images on our feelings, our knowledge, our memory.
"Beware! In playing the phantom you become one" (1995-97) is a videotheque on the history of television, constituted with the collaboration of the critic Herman Asselberghs.
(From a text by Paul Sztulman in the documenta X - short guide)
See also:
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y
Synopsis, texts, clips, transcript, tech rider, and free download, on the artists's website
© Still: Johan Grimonprez
Repro: Haupt & Binder
21 June - 28 September 1997, Kassel, Germany. Artistic director: Catherine David. 138 participants at the exhibition. 100 Days - 100 Guests.