Concentrations 44: Matthew Buckingham Page: 4 of 5
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(e.g., specific objects, the "real space"
of Judd) both address the lived experience
of the viewer, existential phenomenology.
What happens when these different space-
shaping strategies intersect?
MB: The semi-reflective glass at the center
of the installation is a means for doubling a
single projected image into two equal images.
Simultaneously, the glass makes the viewer
aware of his or her own position in relation
:o the film and the film's story. The various
'eflections and shadows created by both the
ilm and the viewer oscillate between the phe-
nomenological and narrative registers. Upon
entering, all of these channels must be negoti-
ated at once. As the viewer "settles" into the
story of the film(s), he or she is hopefully
aware of doing so in a way that contrasts
with the experience of the cinema or other
conventional viewing situations.
SW: Let's clarify what takes place when
the image is projected through the hole of
one wall (the projector is behind the wall).
The reflective two-way glass in the middle
of the gallery allows two symmetrical pro-
jections, one being a reversal of the other.
Moreover, the twenty-minute film is on a
continuous loop. This repetition, doubling,
and reversal seem to parallel what is taking
place with the young man following the
older man in the film.
MB: Yes. The original Poe story is full of
symmetries that I chose to emphasize and
amplify. The follower and followed easily
become doppelgangers of each other; the
story unfolds over a twenty-four-hour period,
beginning and ending at the same time of
day; Poe employs an epigram concerning an
illegible book at the beginning and end of the
story; and so forth. These were the structural
inspirations for doubling the image, condens-
ing the time ratio into about one hour of
narrative time to one minute of film time,
and creating a seamless loop out of the story
by joining the end to the beginning. I also-eta ed t-e enigmatic epigram in the form
of a cell phone call made by the follower at
the point where the story begins again.
SW: When the viewer comes into the space,
does the freestanding framed mirrored
glass in the middle of the gallery reflect his
or her image onto one of the projections
of the film? In essence the viewer becomes
part of the film?
Projected film images are created (contrary to
video) by using the filmstrip to withhold light
from the screen. The images are all, to one
degree or another, created by shadows. This
is also how the viewers register themselves
physically in relation to the film-casting their
own shadow more or less at the same scale
as the figures in the projected image. At the
same time, there is a more subtle play of
reflected light unfolding on the surface of the
glass between the individual viewer, the film
reflections, and other viewers in the space.
SW: It's as if there is a literal and psycho-
logical doubling, repetition, and reversal
going on.
MB: Exactly.
SW: In film theory, Freud's mirror-phase of
childhood, fundamental to ego formation,
has been applied. In traditional narrative
there is identification-the desiring subject
and the object of desire. But in A Man of the
Crowd, identification and this typical sub-
ject-object are disrupted as the young man's
pursuit is challenged by the older man's
sudden stops and changes. Please elaborate.
MB: A very ambiguous play of desire propels
the project. Whether Poe intended it or not, I
believe the story can be read as a critique of
solid subject-object distinctions and relations.
As the action progresses, the sense of dou-
bling overwhelms these categories. The more
the follower uses his methods of observation
in attempting to discover something about
the man he follows, the less he learns about
that man and the more he reveals about him-
self and his own desire for knowledge.SW: In film, especially narrative, there is
always an interdependent relationship
between fact and fiction, real and imagi-
nary, past and present. It seems in all your
previous work, whether it is photography,
video, or film, there is at play this dynamic
relationship between these notions. You
used representations of the past such as
historical records, illustrations, documents,
and data-a strategy of archival practice.
How does that relate to A Man of the Crowd?
My first thought was that film is about the
relationship between the past and present.
MB: I agree. I think that the desire at play
in the story is a desire for the unknown, and
in this case the unknown is partly generated
by the age difference of the characters. Part
of the old man's secret lies in his own experi-
ence, whatever that may be. The younger man
who follows is partly attracted by the inability
to know of past time, someone else's past.
One of the first things that the narrator says
after seeing the old man's face is "How wild
a history!"
SW: With your projects such as
Muhheakantuck-Everything has a Name;
Definition; Amos Fortune Road; and The Six
Grandfathers, Paha Sapa, in the Year 502,002
C.E., you explored the relationship between
collective conscious, historical images,
and actual place and site. These appear
to deal with issues of sociopolitical import
whereas A Man of the Crowd is less sociopo-
litical. Or is it?
MB: I would say that the project addresses
many of the same questions of defining the
past within the present-but in broader and
more symptomatic ways-by looking at some
of the paradigms of historical investigation.
Most of my work can be situated somewhere
on a continuum stretching between geology
at one end and journalism at the other.
SW: In your previous projects such as
Subcutaneous [which addresses Johann
Caspar Lavater's study of physiognomy],
you brought up the idea of how 18th-
century thought on physiognomy continues
-'day. In Kimberly Lamm's intelligent
and incightf' Pssay for the publicationaccompanying the exhibition of A Man of
the Crowd at the Museum Moderner Kunst
Stiftung Ludwig Wien, she associated
"physiognomic logic influences" with the
narrator in Poe's story. Without explaining
away all the layers of your film, how are
these influences at work? Where and in
what form are these influences most
prevalent in society today?
MB: There is a direct connection between
these two projects of mine. Poe's narrator in
the original story reveals a high degree of
racism, sexism, and xenophobia when he proj-
ects his own categories of knowledge onto
the strangers he sees passing by the cafe win-
dow where he sits. When the narrator cannot
find a category for the "wild history" he sees
in the face of the old man, he is compelled to
follow him "whithersoever he should go." Both
Subcutaneous and A Man of the Crowd acknowl-
edge this urge to project onto the unknown
and particularly to navigate among unknown
people by relating them to what is familiar.
But in both cases I try to emphasize that the
only knowledge produced is self-knowledge.
I think this is true on a broader level today
with regard to profiling and immigration poli-
cy. We learn far more about the nation-states
that attempt to employ these methods than
about the subjects they try to define.
SW: In narrative structures of traditional
realist cinema there is a cause and effect-
buildup, conflict, and resolution. The loop
mechanism intensifies the fact that there
is no resolution, no ending in A Man of the
Crowd, but I still could not stop watching
the film over and over again. There are few
films, especially feature length, that I can
watch again immediately afterward. In
watching A Man of the Crowd, I feel caught up
in the action. What is at play that seduces
me to stand there for so long knowing that
I will come back to the beginning with no
resolution at the end?
MB: I hope that it is the way that meaning
changes in relation to what you think you
know about the "story." In other words, thecause-and-effect chain is altered according to
where you enter the story, when you happen
to walk in. The longer you watch the more
you witness cause and effect changing places.
SW: One reviewer did not notice that there
is a soundtrack. Do you think she focused
on the sound of the projector? What is the
soundtrack?
MB: The sound is the natural sound that
accompanies the image-so-called "diegetic"
ambient sound. The installation is arranged
in such a way that the mechanical sound of
the projector can also remain very present
for some viewers. This hopefully leads one
back to the material conditions of the piece.
SW: Could you offer a few examples of
diegetic sounds?
MB: Diegetic sound is any sound in a film that
originates within the "world" or "reality" of the
film's events. This would include all incidental
environmental sound. For instance, if a char-
acter in a film is listening to music on a radio,
that's diegetic. Any sound that the film's char-
acters are unaware of, such as the musical
score, is non-diegetic.
SW: With A Man of the Crowd, the viewer can
see the projector's light coming through a
hole and can even go behind a wall and see
the projector. This idea of the materiality of
film has links with structuralist filmmakers
such as Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow.
Have they been influential?
MB: Yes. This is related to questions like the
sound of the projector-the material experi-
ence of the piece. So-called structuralist and
materialist filmmaking was a big influence on
me and encouraged me to use film outside of
the cinematic context. But from the beginning
I wanted to question the representational
aspects of the materials I was using. I think I
was led in that direction by the fact that there
was almost no connection between material-
ist or structuralist filmmaking and historical
materialism, structuralism, or post-structural-
ism. The terms appear to have been coincidental
in a way. In experimental filmmaking, material-
ism and structuralism described the materialcombination with the projecting apparatus.
Little emphasis was placed on the social or
political signification of film. Working twenty
or thirty years later, I was very interested in
film and photography's representational pow-
. ers-in the politics of representation, how we
accept or deny the meaning and authority of
visual narration in nonfictional as well as fic-
tional moving images.
For me, part of this depends on how we see
images (physically), so I began to incorporate
the installation and configuration of space that
surrounds the time-based projection element of
the work into the project. In the case of A Man
of the Crowd, the ideas of the piece have been
spatialized, confronting the viewer, becoming
part of the physical viewing experience.
SW: For the Dallas Museum of Art, you
have curated a film series that is scheduled
at different times during the run of your
exhibition. We hope to have the following
films: Film by Samuel Beckett, Vienna Walk
by Gunter Brus, Trio A by Yvonne Rainer,
Permutations by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha,
Swamp by Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson,
and TheMythic Being by Adrian Piper. Could
you comment on the connections between
these films and your practice?
MB: These are all films that are in some aspect
connected to the concerns of A Man of the
Crowd. Some were directly influential; others I
discovered after the fact. All of them engage in
questions of following, doubling, and walking
in the city, and what happens when film is
employed to mediate these conditions.
SW: At the Museum, we will also install
framed production stills. How is the making
of these production stills integral to the
process of making A Man of the Crowd?
MB: It was through these images that I decid-
ed on the settings in Vienna for the action of
the film. There are forty-eight images in the
series. In a way it's another account of the
twenty-four-hour journey through Vienna, in
this case at a rate of two images per hour.Biography
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Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Concentrations 44: Matthew Buckingham, pamphlet, 2004-03-18/2004-06-20; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth307650/m1/4/?q=music: accessed July 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Museum of Art.