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Selected Disappearances: Part Three
By Lance Blomgren
Hadley + Maxwell
Deleted Scenes is an exhibition by the Vancouver duo Hadley + Maxwell that showed through May at the Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG). This series of works takes disappearance as one of its primary tactics and themes, where a central "deletion" is structurally incorporated into the work and becomes a point of rumination on the formation of memory and perception.
In the four videos in the east gallery, the mental negative space of what has vanished becomes a sort of spectral protagonist in the "scene" that surrounds it. In one monitor of Language to be Looked at, Hadley throws objects—a ball, a Coke can, a cat, a Molotov cocktail—which change form before they hit the back of Max's head on a second monitor: the ball becomes a Frisbee, the Coke becomes Pepsi, the cat a stuffed animal, the Molotov, smoke. On a third monitor, the objects drop to the floor.
In the video Withdraw, a line on a plinth is being erased while a faint line that is actually drawn on the plinth disconcertingly remains. Another work projects the image of a swaying light-bulb against an actual bulb, the ghost image somehow making the real, three-dimensional object a mere likeness.
Like the carwash, this work provides a strong visual sense to the formation of memory through an affirmation of absence. The sensual disruption of the videos renders the deletion tangible, at times making what you actually see somewhat peripheral.
This perceptual haunting becomes a metaphor for the construction of individual and collective memory where, similar to a hangover, images overlap but rarely line up.
The Would-Be Thief of the Burgundy Buick, the Burgundy Buick
Three nights ago I was staring aimlessly out my back window when I saw a man walk by a car in the alley and try its handles. My view was partially obscured. His actions seemed suspicious, as did the scraping and knocking sounds that emanated from his direction, but it was possible that this was his own car. I forgot about it for a couple of minutes until I noticed he was still sitting in the front seat, fumbling around inside. I decided to take a closer look.
As I entered the alley, the man got out of the car and walked away from me at a brisk clip, turning the corner onto the street. I followed at a comfortable distance. By the time I got to the corner, the man had completely disappeared from view.
Sure enough, when I returned and looked at the car—a red Buick—the backseat window was smashed and ignition wires had been pulled out beneath the steering wheel. I called the police and gave my statement; the owner came out and thanked me for helping to prevent theft in the neighbourhood.
Later that night, reading in bed, I heard some banging in the alley, but didn't have the energy to get up. When I woke up the next day, the Buick was not in its parking spot, and the space has remained vacant since.
Kissed
In Kissed, a film based on a short story by Barbara Gowdy and directed by Vancouver-based Lynne Stopkewich, the main character is a necrophiliac funeral parlour worker who has sex with the recently deceased as a way of helping their transition from physical death to soul death and also as a way of experiencing this "crossing over" for herself.
The literally orgasmic quality of this passage, I remember, is characterized by a blinding, transcendent light—a visceral response to liminality.
Throughout the recording of these disappearances, I've been looking for this film in my local video store as a source of reference. The display case is there, facing out, so I see it whenever I'm in the store, but the copy itself is never in. It's been weeks now. Apparently someone will have a huge late fee awaiting him or her.
If you are the person who is holding onto the film, I humbly request that you return it, although, by the time you do, I'll most likely have forgotten about it.
