“Connectconnectconnect
I still dislike dogs most of the time:
Ladywell, Imagined”
Somewhere in a small room on the ground floor of a whitecube gallery, I’m watching a video installation play on a 10-minute loop. There’s minimal sound to it, just the low diegetic hum of a park in the early hours.
It depicts a misty, shrubbish space. As I acclimatise to the room and focus on the video properly, I see a figure in it that’s meant to be me-
He’s crouching down, peering through the thicket.
His image is clichéd and tinted blue,
The colour grading is so documenta,
So Kassel Wilhelmshöhe blue,
Dark, blue and thick.
It’s doing that thing all these videos seem to– it’s
Got a smaller frame overlaid, picture-in-picture.
The small frame moves outwith the big one,
It’s installed inside my field of view.
Now every waking moment sees that screen upon a screen,
An imagined loop of Ladywell.
The loop accelerates exponentially,
Becomes a fluttering of frames,
My figure gets so motion sick,
He/it begins to vomit:
“I’m so unwashed,
I’m filthy,
Sick, vomit and dirt,
Still Retching,
Ladywell!
I am filthy
I’m sick
I am unwashed”