The Refusal (part IV)

22 channel video, 16:9 format, 8.54, looped, no audio
each screen 40”, installation 22.35m, 2018

Archive footage of an international gymnastics competition held at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall, is dissected to reveal the psychological pressures of international competition. The work’s protagonist – a key contender – has three attempts at the vault. On each occasion she abandons her challenge at the last moment. This work, commissioned for the 22 screens on the mezzanine of Perth Concert Hall, pays attention to the visual flow of movement along the 22m space – from right to left, and vice-versa – drawing on Muybridge’s celebrated movement studies. Anticipation of the performance, and a focus on the gymnast’s emotional state, is suggested through a repetition of particular gestures, and by the precise editing of the degraded, slowed-down film.

Exhibited in New Order I Other Spaces, Threshold artspace, Perth Concert Hall, as part of the cultural programme for the Glasgow 2018 European Championships.


installation views StudioRoRo