Stillness in Motion: Todos los caminos conducen al mar

Abstract

'The photographic', as I imagine it, is not reducible to photography even while borrowing part of its soul and the fate of which we believed photography to be the guardian. The photographic exists somewhere in-between; it is a state of 'in-betweenness' in movement, it is that which interrupts, that paralyses; in immobility, it perhaps bespeaks its relative impossibility.-Raymond Bellour, Concerning 'The Photographic'Installation artworks are participatory sculptural environments in which the viewer's spatial and temporal experience with the exhibition space and the various objects in it forms part of the work itself. These pieces are meant to be experienced as activated spaces rather than as discrete objects: they are designed to 'unfold' during the spectator's experience in time rather than to be known visually all at once. Installations made with media screens are especially evocative in that as environmental, experiential sculptures, they stage temporal and spatialised encounters between viewing subjects and technological objects, between bodies and screens. A potentially new mode of screen-reliant spectatorship emerges in the process.-Kate Mondloch, Screens: Viewing Media Installation ArtconteMpoRARy ARtists ' cineMA hAs ReceiveD incReAseD schoLARLy attention internationally as film and video produced by visual artists highlights the need for expanded frameworks in the interpretation and analysis of moving image production.1 The work which came to prominence as video art in the 1960s and continued into various forms of site-specific installation now encompasses a range of material that brings new perspective to the idea of the cinematic. Artists' cinema is produced principally for the art gallery, the museum and biennial exhibitions. Freed from the physical space of the cinema as viewing context, this work creates modes of perceiving and interacting which reconfigure our ways of thinking in relation to elements such as screen, image, sound and dimension in time-based media. In the Anglophone Caribbean, artists' film and video has received attention in art journals, but is seldom discussed in academic publications.2 Yet this work offers an opportunity for exploring the ways in which contemporary art might contribute to innovation in both cinema practice and cinema theory. I am interested in the ways in which specific forms of art practice might allow one to think through the interpenetration of visual media in the wider arena of moving image studies.This essay is a reflection on the video installation Todos los caminos conducen al mar (All Roads Lead to the Sea) (1997-2007) by Cuban artists Liudmila Velasco and Nelson Ramirez de Arellano Conde - and on the issue of the relation between still and moving images raised by the work. The artists - known professionally as Liudmila & Nelson - have been working together in conceptual photography since 1995. They began their video practice in 2001. Todos los caminos conducen al mar was originally produced and exhibited as still photography - a large collage measuring 3 metres by 37 centimetres which documented ten streets in Havana that lead to the sea. It was produced in 1996 (Figure 1). The idea for completing this project as a video installation was present at the inception and was realised in 2007 (Figure 2).3 The same streets were videotaped and the installation was produced as a five-channel projection displayed across what appears to be one continuous screen.4 The video is run as a loop of approximately twelve minutes. Each channel has a unique soundtrack - ambient noise of the street as well as music and singing (in Spanish). Each channel shows two streets, flanked by colonial buildings which direct the viewer's attention to the final destination - the water at the Malecon.5 The images are offered to us through a stationary camera which captures the comings and goings of pedestrians in the foreground and middle ground and vehicles in the distance at the sea. …