Eva Koch

Eva Koch's installation 'Up' is a loop that shows people coming up out of a subterranean shaft. As a projection it has a diameter of 60cm.
Projected onto the street where many people will pass by during the course of the day, it provides moments of surprise; a little intervention that some will pass by not noticing and some will pause for a moment wondering what is going on.
The idea behind Koch's installation is that urban space is itself full of images and information that it may be difficult for art to find a place to demand to be seen and reflected on. Art in a public space requires special ethic to take into account the question of how art may address a public that has not in fact asked to be addressed. With her discreet intervention Koch opens up possibilities for us to reflect on all the we do not see and all that lies outside our field of vision.
Koch's work reminds me of an artist called Julian Beever who draws large scale illusions onto pavements to try and again, involve the public into his art. His pieces are anamorphic illusions drawn with a special distortion in order to create an impression of 3 dimensions when viewed from one specific viewpoint.

Hysteria

The face of the woman in “Hysteria” displays extreme emotion. There are no sounds, so the viewer cannot be sure whether the subject is moved by joy or despair or perhaps both. Taylor-Wood explained she wanted to amalgamate these two opposed emotional states and blur the difference between them to such a degree that they would become the same thing. The emotional turmoil of the actress is meant to infect the implied spectator who is unable to distance themsleves from the unnerving expression of an intense emotional outburst because it defies labelling, thus launching us into confusion.
I like Taylor-Woods intentions here, and in a world dominated by the spoken language, we can actually read more from a person by their body language and facial expressions. The fact that this piece has a great ambiguity to it also makes it more intruiging to watch and figure out our own conclusions from it.

Deadpan

1996 was the first year that a video artist, Douglas Gordon, won the Turner Prize. One of his best known works, Deadpan is a restaging of a Buster Keaton stunt in which a house collapses around McQueen who is left unscathed because he is where there is a window.

The use of extreme and unexpected camera angles is a trademark of McQueen's films. The idea of putting the camera in an unfamiliar position is simply to do with film language . Cinema is a narrative form and by putting the camera at a different angle, we are questioning that narrative as well as the way we are looking at things. It is also a very physical piece which makes you aware of your own presence in comparison to the legs on the video.

24 Hour Psycho

The exhibition is a video of a 24 Hour run of Psycho; a slowed-down version of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film so it lasted a full day.
Gordon represents a different take on this classic horror and he has introduced many of the important themes in his work: recognition and repetition, time and memory, complicity and duplicity, authorship and authenticity, darkness and light.
In his own words Gordon states:
"24 Hour Psycho, as I see it, is not simply a work of appropriation. It is more like an act of affiliation... it wasn't a straightforward case of abduction. The original work is a masterpiece in its own right, and I've always loved to watch it. ... I wanted to maintain the authorship of Hitchcock so that when an audience would see my 24 Hour Psycho they would think much more about Hitchcock and much less, or not at all, about me..."

I haven't seen this video myself so i can't really pass judgement on it, but one reviewer who has seen 24 hour Psycho states:
"I have seen Psycho several times and I thought I'd instantaneously know where I was narratively but, as it turns out, film projected at 2 frames per second is quite a different experience. I was lost. I don't know how long it took me to realize that I had just missed the shower scene but I had. When I realized I'd missed the scene I felt a wave of disappointment. But what happened next was surprising to me.

Before I knew it I was in the headspace of Norman Bates himself, feeling my own wave of nausea and guilt (just as Norman does staring at what "Mother" has done), realizing that I had walked into this exhibit and even vaguely planned the time of my arrival to see the murder. Time is a funny thing. At two frames per second I was mesmerized staring at Norman Bates who was a) moving very very slowly b) feeling guilty very very slowly c) turning off the motel lights very very slowly and d) cleaning up the bathroom very very slowly while Janet Leigh's arm hung limply and tellingly in frame. While all of this was happening very very slowly it turns out the time was flying by. Before I knew it 45 minutes had passed.
I highly recommend this exhibit. I'll be back to spend more time with the rest of it, and I'll try not to let Norma's psychosis suck me back in for another hour so that I can give the other Gordon pieces their due"

Willie Doherty

Willie Doherty's video piece 'Re-Run' 2002 shows a man running along a bridge at night, projected onto two screens opposite one another. On one screen he runs towards the viewer and on the other he runs away, in an eternal silent loop. The man becomes a universal figure, caught in a perpetual no-man’s-land, never reaching his destination or escaping his pursuer.
The video creates an overwhelming sense of fear; it is like your worst nightmare, being chased and unable to escape. The fear is displayed through his facial expressions; a look of pure panic. This video has the ability to make you feel the subject's terror and enters great depths of panic and desperation.

Gillian Wearing - Video Confessions

I am really intrigued by Gillian Wearing's video confessions, to achieve this, she released an advert, which became the title of the work, ran "Confess all on video. Don't worry you'll be in disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian ... "
The volunteers were dressed in disguises with wigs, masks and other disguises to hide their identity.

They were filmed making confessions which ranged from tales of theft, revenge, betrayal and sexual perversion. Wearing's work reminds me of another artist's work called Frank Warren.
Warren invited people to take part in a community art project; he printed and distributed 3,000 self addressed postcards inviting people to anonymously share a secret with him. The response was phenomenal and Warren created a series of books called ‘PostSecrets’ documenting the responses he received. There was no restriction on what the content should be; only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before. Entries ranged from admissions of sexual misconduct and criminal activity to confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits to hopes and dreams.

POSTSECRETS

These two artworks are really similar except one takes the form of video art while the other drawn art; yet both cover the same subject. It is amazing that we can discover what admissions people will confess while under disguise or knowing that their identity will never be revealed. It is hard to detach yourself from the PostSecrets and Wearings Confessions because they are issues which the viewer can associate with, which is why they are so successful and popular works of art.