Ritual and Repetition

In Damnation V (radial device) , 2006
1 minute
John Aäsp – Rochester New York

The series Damnation is neither chronophotography nor cinema, but is about both. Though images are appropriated from cinema, the final pieces are not cinematic. The medium is only partly the message. The material specificities – film blemishes, video scan lines, digital aliasing, etc. – become implanted with original content as a compound remediation.

In Damnation V (radial device) a crude torture device is hand-held in front of the camera for investigative display. The image is repeated and delayed in a sixteen-screen grid. As the had shifts to show us more of the object, a vignette (an event occurring in the original film) cascades across the grid in sequence. This piece brings a new dimension to both the frustrating and hypnotic aspects of repetition – both entranced curiosity and voyeuristic shame can be felt by staring at something that is at once aesthetically desirable but practically objectionable.

www.johnaasp.com