Design and Art Australia Online

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sit side by side. They are talking to one another and to the camera but we can’t hear what they’re saying. Instead, text sprouts from their heads – “there was something between them… that would never heal… that would never die…” – the words swaying from side to side as though the text really were attached to their faces. This encounter between these famous actors appears in Daniel McKewen’s something 2.0 [2007].

McKewen’s works experiment with points of view, with modes of identification and communication, exposing subtexts and playfully altering found footage into creepily unsettling new formations. empty olsens [2005] took footage of the Olsen Twins – marginal yet highly recognisable Hollywood celebrities – and painted out their faces, arms and legs, leaving only the outline of clothing from which the viewer could decipher the identity of the video’s ostensible subjects. me as al, you as bobby, you as al, me as bobby [2007] took the final, climactic gun fight scene from Michael Mann’s Heat [1995] and, stripping away all sound and music, replayed the scene labeling Al Pacino’s gun as “me” and Robert De Niro’s gun as “you” then swapping the labels. Presented as continuous loop, the work altered and confused the point of identification for the viewer, asking – who is the “me” and the “you” in a scene in which the viewer is the unnamed third presence.

Writers:

Andrew Frost

Date written:

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Status:

moderator approved