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Present Tense (2006, 8:40m) juxtaposes 8mm tourist footage - taken from the top of the World Trade Centre prior to its destruction - with later video of that same footage playing in the 8mm camera on which it was shot. The piece serves to demonstrate the illusory power of video's immediacy, its feeling of 'present tense'. Even though we are aware that the twin towers no longer exist, and are implicitly reminded of that fact through the elegiac replaying of the 8mm footage on the camera, we cannot resist sinking into the raw 'now-ness' of the shaky images from atop the towers. For a moment we forget where we stand in history. As the piece progresses, however, history creeps in, and the everyday tourist footage becomes loaded with the significance of recent events: the Intrepid, sitting in New York harbour, or the twisted, neutered gun sculpture at the United Nations suddenly become rife with connotation. The innocent exuberance of the tourists (the filmmaker and friends) contrasts with the grim significance the WTC has to us today -- and the symbolic meanings it held for other, less friendly visitors. Meanwhile, the deterioration of the analogue images from the towers, crackling with static, serves as a sad reminder of the fallibility of this electronic medium; as much as steal and concrete, video too fails and falls. Short Synopsis Present Tense juxtaposes 8mm tourist footage - taken from the top of the World Trade Centre prior to its destruction - with later video images of that same footage playing in the 8mm video camera on which it was shot. The piece serves to demonstrate the illusory power of video's immediacy, its feeling of 'present tense.'

YouTube | February 28, 2008

Tags:. .same. .united. .taken. .stand. .meanings