Video Nr. 12
Heimo Zobernig
Video Nr. 12, 1996
Video, color, silent, 30 min Performer: Heimo Zobernig Produced by: The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago Post production: Matthew Konicek (Avenue Edit)
GF0000687.00.0-1996
Artwork text
Heimo Zobernig’s oeuvre comprises sculptures, installations, graphic art, and paintings as well as an extensive body of works on video in which he puts the premises of the video medium on “display” in two senses of the word. He not only reveals the operations of the video system as a tool of art, but also exposes the rules and conventions that govern it with characteristic bluntness. “Video No. 12” is conceived as Zobernig works at the Renaissance Society in Chicago. The work shows the naked artist performing gymnastic and dance exercises in a hallway. In reality, his actions are set in a sheltered interior space. In the video, however, the use of chroma keying dismantles the hallway’s blue walls, transporting him to an exterior scene. Abrupt shifts of perspective inject panorama shots that Zobernig recorded during a tour of the city’s architecture. The coarsely executed chroma keying stands in deliberate contrast to the perfection with which this technique is employed in TV and film productions today. The goal is to unmask video as an apparatus of illusion, not to cater to it. (Jürgen Tabor)