Colby (reconstruction after Gary Hill)

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this piece came out of a real story, but on that count all a viewer can do is believe.

here is what happened, listen: i met this boy whose name was Colby. he told me a story, how he and a certain girl, his girlfriend at that time, were filmed by Gary Hill for a video installation. he told me all the details and his guess of what the installation was supposed to look like. multi-channel piece where Colby performs his tricks - spinning a pillow on his finger and flipping a cigarette in his mouth. and there is another screen involved, where there is the girl looking at him, just sitting and looking at him.

i envisioned the piece in my head and decided that i want to reconstruct it for myself. this image grew out of proportion in my head, Colby, being sanctified by a great artist, put on a pedestal and becoming a piece of art, all that aura that the touch of this artistic icon had bestowed on him by shooting him. (funny how shooting makes a living person into a dead object, objectifies it...) so i asked him to reconstruct the whole thing for my camera. there are differences however, as you can hear from the recording of Colby's recollection. i inserted myself into the picture and i took my camera with me. i thought that the girl's part was so passive, so i activated it by recording her viewpoint to turn upside down and around the gender positions that the piece seemed to contain. this is also where a long line of thinking about objectification and fetish seems to have come into a conscious realisation, especially concerning a male body.

and what about Gary? he probably never finished the piece and it's probably lying around somewhere on his tapes, who knows. i told you, all you can do is believe this story.

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the two screen installation was shown in 2005 at the final exhibition for Oskár Čepan Award in Bratislava and at an accompanying exhibition to Jindřich Chalupecký Award in Prague later the same year. it was also featured in numerous screenings and festivals.