2004
Video transfer to DVD with sound .
The project is a series of three films showing three individuals performing their specialist act. A sword swallower, a strong man and a glutton. The films comment on our desire for fame and the admiration of others and illustrate to what extremes some are willing to go to achieve this. On another level, the films comment on a desire to leave something behind, to be remembered as somebody after one is dead.
I have focused on the potential sacrifice and the risks some are willing to take to make their mark on the world. Every time they perform, they risk their lives and their health in order to become immortal in the memories of the audience. Removed from the show and the circus that usually surrounds them, and from the egging audience whose admiration they seek, the performers are left in a timeless space, with only themselves and their act remaining. Their act is now an intimate and absurd one performed for the few.
The look of the films references the studio portraiture of freaks in the late 19th century. Each has a symbol attached to it, a small but ever present reminder of time running out. The subjects have been heavily worked into the matter of the medium, not to further impress us with their daring feats, but to normalise them. To make them seem inevitable.
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