Here & Elsewhere

Kerry Tribe

Here & Elsewhere, 2004

Artwork text

Kerry Tribe’s Here & Elsewhere (2002) is a double citation. The title is from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1976 film Ici et ailleurs, which was at once a documentary on the Palestinian struggle and a documentary on how film constructs historical meaning. The script is a re-working of Godard’s France/tour/detour/deux/enfants (1977), an experimental video series made for television in which Godard interviews two young children about philosophy and ethics. Tribe restages Godard’s interview with British film theoretician Peter Wollen and his daughter Audrey. The restaging points to the gap between Tribe and Wollen’s periods of production. When Wollen asks his nine-year-old daughter If I said, oh back in the 1970s such and such happened. Would you know what I meant? Audrey responds that she can’t see the 1970s but she knows that there is a 1970s. This looping split between the 1970s and 2000s—the historical simultaneity of here and elsewhere—is formally underscored by the two synchronized videos projected side by side. (Julie Carson)