Gordon's work questions how we give meaning to our experience of things. much of his work uses the manipulation of "Real" and "Reel" time to purvey this process of discovering minute detail and focus. In his attempts to re-experience and subvert time threw the manipulation of “real” and “reel” time Gordon makes his audience reflect on their own experiences. We are taken to the past while still experiencing the present, scrutinize a single film so much that it’s meaning become transparent until it loses all meaning together. Gordon also explores the point where we no longer feel time by subverting the process of death.
His work 24-hour-Psycho, 1993 is a replay of hitchcocks 1960 flim Psycho slowed down to play over an entire day. This pulls the audience out of the fiction of the movie and allows for us to examine the events in closer detail changing the meaning and taking away the original intention of the film. his manipulation of Reel time in an attempt to create real time occurrences instead allows time to slow down creating a void of occurrence, where at times there is little or nothing taking place but our own reflection.
Something between my mouth and your Ear, 1994.Is a full room sound and light instillation in which Gordon painted a room completely the same shade of blue and placed a stereo system in it. The light on the ceiling changes brightness depending on the time of day and brightness of the sky, mimicking the natural light of the sun outside. The stereo system in the room plays 30 different tracks that may have been played by his mother in the last six months he was in the womb. Gordon explores his life trying to find subconscious memories that may have affected him at an early age. Recreating the past and present with both light and sound.
Play Dead; Real Time, 2003. In this Real time movie split across three screens. Gordon films a giant Indian Elephant from three different perspectives in a small room. Using the Elephant as a symbol of memory, nature, power,life and Death. As the title suggests the elephant conforms and lies on its side for a short time then returns to its feet after being still for a while. The Elephant in its rising from the dead defeats Death, an impossible idea. This relates to Gordon’s fascination with control and free will, it is imposible to over come death we have no say however Gordons Elephant refuses it over and over as the video plays the polarity between controlling time and the uncontrollability of time are thus highlighted.
Bibliograpghy
- http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/24th-street-2003-02-douglas-gordon/
- http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=2617&page=1&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=bio
- Art & Today, Elenor Heartney, 2008
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