Cap Rites, video collaboration with Gabriel Shalom, 2007
The artist Selene States is shown performing a ritual in cap and gown. She twitches, itches to act: to scratch at the cap. She rubs at it. Tugs at it. Pulls at it, this way and that. The cap snaps. The cap crackles and pops. The cap wraps up her arms, encases her face, masks and inflates. Cap rites explores pathology through the analysis of movement and sound. The video work dissects the gestures and movements of the artist, isolating and reiterating single frames and short clips. The portent of the tiniest flicker of sensory data is amplified through repetition. An expression becomes a nervous tic, a gesture becomes a compulsion. The synchronous micro-editing of sound and image creates a vibrating and chafing sensory effect similar to that of an itch. The scratch edit techniques compel the obsessive ritual into being. Thus, through technical simulation, the artists explore the link between pathological motives—here the compulsion of an itch—and behaviors—scratching--to recapitulate the performance of (un)soundness.
