UNTITLED (FOR TWO PROJECTORS)

Site specific installation by oko (Joanna Byrne and Mark Byrne) 16mm film (2010)

“The Emperor’s New Mall: The popular notion that shopping malls exist on the insides only and have no exterior. The suspension of visual belief engendered by this notion allows shoppers to pretend that the large, cement blocks thrust into their environment do not, in fact, exist.” Douglas Coupland | 1991 | Generation X

What happens when buildings lie empty? Do they die? Or do they take on another form of life? What ghosts remain?

Shot in the TK Maxx space of Leeds Shopping Plaza (now part of the Trinity Centre) on Fomapan 16mm filmstock, the film was carefully choreographed, alongside bursts of free improvised movement. The filmstock was then hand-processed and manually edited into two 50ft loads of film. Installed on two 16mm projectors via a hand-made looper system, the work foregrounded the internal architecture of this stripped down former retail unit. The piece was created, projected and destroyed in the same space.

Derek Horton wrote a piece to accompany the remnants of the installation, which was exhibited in place of the projections:

“The collective oko work with the materiality of film and the performative aspects of its mechanical projection. For The Plaza Principle they made two films in the empty space of this room, then projected them on a double screen, with the films looped around the architecture of the building. The fragility of the film and the stresses of this process mean that it has a limited lifespan, shorter than the duration of this exhibition. The films were shown for four days, until they disintegrated and the loops broke. The mechanics of this process remain as the only surviving trace of its life in this space.”

oko (2010-2013) was an artistic collaboration between Joanna Byrne and Mark Byrne.

exhibition

2010: The Plaza Principle, Leeds [installation].