Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Kingston University
1414 km
Sculpture installation containing two films
27th April 2010 – 30th May 2010
Commissioned by Andrea Sassi for Dispari & Dispari Arte Contemporanea, Italy.
One aspect of Nixon’s research is concerned with the physical and political components of landscape. Using specially designed camera systems mounted on top of moving vehicles Nixon makes films within the landscape to explore territories and zones making journeys and films around and across borders delineating geographical territories.
Commissioned and funded by Dispari&Dispari Arte Contemporanea Italy for Nixon’s solo exhibition Across the border, April 2010. 1414 km is a unique sculpture containing two films. To create the films Nixon equipped a Fiat Uno with two HD cameras, one filming forwards and one filming backwards, and recorded in real time the 1414 km journey from his studio in South London to the exhibition venue in Italy driving across four international borders; UK, France, Switzerland and Italy. The two 18hr films capture the entire landscape in front and behind the car as it emerges and recedes along the route. The Fiat is exhibited with both films synchronised and projected from within overlapping onto the single cinematic space of its frosted windscreen. The films are viewed from outside the sealed car. Consequently, the external space of the journey as experienced from within the vehicle, is now a symbolically welded component of the car as object.
1414 km is about stillness and motion, internal and external space and the political nature of landscape shaped by the systems of roads and borders. 1414 km and the accompanying 62pp publication Across the Border, commissioned by Andrea Sassi [Book ISBN 978-88-95600-02-4] contributes to practice in the fields of experimental film and land art extending the concerns of Richard Long A Line Made by Walking and Vito Acconci’s ‘Body as Place-Moving in on Myself, Performing Myself, into areas of border delineations informed by the writings of Etienne Ballibar, What is a border? and Marc Auge’s, Non-places. Reviews include http://www.curamagazine.com/en/?page_id=17
