She’s gone

2009 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
3 min loop

Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda remake a clip from the 1970s they found on the internet, and without really changing this archive material, displace it by imitating the staging and the acting with scrupulous precision. The slightest details are reproduced identically with great minutiae. The facial expressions are absurd, the prim attitude makes no sense. The blasé air of the actors (the artists themselves) creates a comic and ridiculous shift. This work is typical of Chung and Maeda’s artistic strategy in which the hoax is a pretext for rereading and although the artists are staging themselves, they are also intent on becoming absent. In this literal video remake, the artists question the modes of diffusion of images, copying, artistic territory, legitimacy and paternity.

Jay Chung and Takeki Maeda’s practice is characterized by performance, which often involves weighty unsettling humour. Concerned by popular and digital culture, art speculation and self-criticism they play with their presence and retreat, creating some emptiness which is conducive to reflexion. They are known for their definition of new artistic territories and the chosen format is always extremely varied. There is a certain anthropological aspect to their approach, a precise gaze, attentive as they are to the context in which their new work articulates itself.

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