Spin

2011

1 channel HD videos, stereo sound or silent, 3:32 loop
2 channel HD synchronised video, stereo or surround sound or silent, 3:32 loop

Spin is a 1- or 2-channel video about consumption. Based on a poem by the artist are two lusciously played allegories. One stars a passionfruit coral trout, suddenly transported inland to the remote Australian bush. The other stars a woman undergoing the traditional Japanese practice of nyotaimori. Cut in perfect sync, the stories each culminate in an ambivalent suicide/self-rescue.

Spin (panel 1) looks at how our oceans are being fished out to sate our own desires. Choreographing a desperate and inexplicable duet between a fish and a rusted-out car wreck, it evokes complicity and grace in the face of violence and suffering, by means of the limited decision-making available to the glorious yet doomed live edible species.

Spin (panel 2) explores the practice in exotic nightclubs of nyotaimori, wherein fresh food is served on a naked body. It imagines a surreal transposition of the fetishised stripper into the fetishised role of exotic fish. As her clients eat, the woman-platter absorbs the energy of the (dead) fish that adorn her limbs. She comes to life, jolting into consciousness on the edge of a cliff...

Direction and text: Elena Knox
Light and camera: Paul J Warren, Matt Fatches, Elena Knox, Lindsay Webb
Camera assist: Brydie Sheen
Set, costume and choreography: Elena Knox
Sound and music: Lindsay Webb
Edit and colour: Elena Knox
Performance: Lian Loke
Feasters: Matt Fatches, Pete Manwaring, Tia Mavanie, Jo-Ann Shaw, Rully Zakaria
Makeup and hair: Glitta Supanova
Stills: Matt Fatches
Production: Lull Studio

Screenings/Exhibitions

VAEFF (Video Art and Experimental Film Festival), Tribeca Film Center, New York City 2017
Voyeurism, 107 Projects, Sydney 2016
Beyond Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, UNSW Galleries, Sydney 2015
Fleshed Out, Ariel Booksellers, Sydney 2011