vikki wilson - superpermanence
superpermanence, 1998
Digital video displayed as single-channel DVD on plasma screen; stereo audio
5 mins; colour and b&w
Rick Mason is gratefully acknowledged for sound design
Supported by the Perth Institute of contemporary Art (PICA)
Collection: Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Courtesy: the artist
contents: essay | artist's bio | artist's statement
Writing about superpermanence, Vikki Wilson explains, 'The soundtrack uses analogous methods in representing temporal displacement. Scrub controls (both analogue and digital), remapped sound samples, and variations in the time stretching were employed. These methods lent a 'rushing wind' effect which seemed to us appropriate to the visual imagery.'1
The 'rushing wind' effect has a special place in the iconography of cinematic sound design; imagine a Western - a hero stands alone in a ghost town and the audience shares an intense moment of nostalgia for an unrecoverable past or a community long destroyed. The 'rushing wind' effect is also commonly used to accompany visions of post-apocalyptic landscapes; in short it is code for 'the battle has been lost'.
superpermanence can be seen as a commentary on the intense debate that has taken place in the experimental film community over the aesthetic pros and cons of digital video compared to celluloid. Using a tiny segment of film (sometimes just the single frame) as the original source material, the finished work is constructed entirely by digital means. As Wilson astutely observes, 'in the digital environment, editing becomes part of the primary production of the image'.2 There is a kind of digital introspection at play, as the artist expands and reworks the source material using the electronic tools of the editing suite. In superpermanence, Wilson creates images and effects that refer to the handmade tradition of experimental film, in which an intuitive and painterly approach is often used, the artist scratching and painting directly onto the celluloid. The work even includes the negative image of a human hand briefly tinkering at the side of the screen.
In the no man's land of superpermanence, a series of oppositional aesthetic elements fight it out: recorded image and constructed effect, colour and black and white, macro and micro, dirty and clean, foreground and background, the list goes on. The shadowy figure hops and jitters about in programmed time, busily multiplying into a crowd of one.
superpermanence explores how digital technologies are able to keep everything 'on' at once; each pixel is equally retrievable, repeatable and adjustable, unlike the fragility of film, which can withstand only so much manipulation before becoming damaged. The increasing accessibility and flexibility of digital technology has made it largely the medium of choice for cutting-edge experimental practice. In mainstream media we can see the digitally generated 'dirt' in the digital studio lathered on for 'gritty realism' and 'atmosphere' (Traffic, 2000), and the labour of the handmade film used as code for mania (Se7en, 1995). It remains to be seen whether or not the 'hand-made' aesthetic resulting from direct contact with celluloid survives.
1 Mason, R & Wilson, V, superpermanence: Time Tracing, Digital Editing and Dirt, Cantrill's Film Notes, Sept 1998, p 6
2 Mason, R & Wilson, V, op. cit. p 4
1962 - Born in Gibraltar; lives and works in Perth, Australia
Vikki Wilson works in new media, producing single- and multi-channel videos, installations and online interactive pieces. Her work has been shown both in Australia and internationally.
In 2002, Wilson's screen-based multimedia installation A Throw of the Dice: A Serial Killer Permutation Engine was exhibited as part of the Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (BEAP).
Wilson has collaborated with composer Lindsay Vickery, creating multimedia design for Rendez Vous: An Opera Noir, produced by the Black Swan Theatre Company in 2001.
She currently teaches in Multimedia Design at Murdoch University, Western Australia, where her research activities include writing about interactivity, digital textuality, computer technology and literary theory, interactive performance and new image research.
Vikki Wilson produced superpermanence and collaborated with Rick Mason on the soundtrack. Rick Mason currently works in multimedia in Perth, Western Australia.
Screenings
~ York, 2003, and The Art Institute of Chicago, 2003
~ superpermanence, Multimedia Arts Asia Pacific Festival, The Art Museum of China Millennium Monument, Beijing, 2002
~ A Throw of the Dice: Serial Killer Permutation Engine, Spectrum Gallery, Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (BEAP), 2002
~ Rendez-Vous: An Opera Noir (video and multimedia design), Black Swan Theatre Company, Perth, 2001
~ Songs of (Virtual) Love and War, screening and performance by Lindsay Vickery, various venues Germany and USA, 2001
~ superpermanence, German-Australian e-business Council Conference, Berlin, 2001
~ Drive-by screen event for drivers on Perth roads, 2000
~ March Riever, Experimenta, Melbourne, 2000, and MAAP, Brisbane, 1999
~ Radium City and Future_Suture web installations, Festival of Perth, 1999
~ Etching a New Subversive Ground (Retarded Eye), Modern Image Makers Association Screenings, Melbourne; Sydney Intermedia Network, Sydney; Austrian Filmmakers Cooperative, Vienna; London Video Access, London; Cinecycle, Pleasuredome Film and Video, Toronto, 1995
Selected Bibliography
~ September 1999. 'Gritty, Itchy and Touchable', RealTime
~ MAAP 2002 catalogue
~ Alach, F, July 2000. 'Driveby Anxiety', RealTime
~ Ball, D, 2003. 'Opening doors: MAAP in Beijing', RealTime #54
~ Bromfield, D, February 1999. 'Trash and Treasure', The West Australian
~ de Bruyn, D A, 'History to Remember', Filmnews vol.25
~ Cook, R, June 1999. 'Look Before You Leap', Artwords
~ Dolgopolov, G, May 1999. 'A Stitch in Time', RealTime
~ English A, July 2000. 'Driveby', Australian Art Monthly
~ Hupfel, B, October 2000. Artlink 20
~ Kreckler, D, February 1999. Future_Suture catalogue
~ Leggett, M, August 2000. 'CD Rom Possibilities', RealTime
~ Mason, R & Wilson, V, September 1998. 'superpermanence and Time Tracing', Cantrill's Film Notes
~ Mudie, P, 1995. 'Etching a New Subversive Ground - Formal Directions in Experimental Video', catalogue essay|
~ Retarded Eye, August 2000. Photofile, Australian Centre for Photography
~ Retarded Eye, 1994. Cantrill's Film Notes Issue1
~ Sumich, J, September 1999. 'Imprints', RealTime
superpermanence explores the metaphysical resonances of the simplest of representational elements - figure and ground - as they come into play on the temporal horizon.
The piece is partly an experiment in materials - bringing 'dirt' into the sterile space of the digital studio, and of digital methods of degrading and abrading the image to 'breaking' point - of disappearance and obliteration.
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