LIVE FROM THE CRUCIBLE
[2013]

Comissioned for channel 4 Random Acts by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.  

Live from the Crucible paraphrases the style of an archaeology programme about the ancient Elamite maquette, Sit Shamshi,  with an excerpt of the story of Gilgamesh, narrated by poet Douglas Park. The scene is set in a 12th century BC bronze tableau. The model depicts two nude men assisting one another in a ritual ablution within a stylised urban landscape. They are surrounded by cultic paraphernalia, including two ziggurats, an offering table or drain, a sacred grove, a stele, two cone shaped columns, basins and a large jar.

The video, shot on an Ikegami studio camera sourced from 1980s Granada Television centre, makes a series of passes through the bronze tableau set on a motion control rig. The vintage tube camera and miniaturised studio lighting design places the work in a pre digital history. This frozen ritual scene is translated into a dynamic set of visual events comprising the ceremony, then through superimposition, montage and repetition, the space evokes a more hallucinatory and abstract sensibility.