EWVA European Women's Video Art
Eugènia BALCELLS
Key Works
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Indian Circle (1981)
30m
3/4" Umatic
A collaboration with the musician Peter Van Riper, this 30 minute tape is an unedited action response improvisation between the sound performance and the camera work. A real collaboration was possible because of our shared concerns for attention to space and awareness of surroundings. This work deals with space and time / motion / sound in that space as a continuous, over-all, non-directional experience where surprises can happen. The artist is intrigued by the space behind the camera. Space in time, constant change, energy flow: the great dance of everything. Immersed in sound. From a center the camera scanning with no predetermined objective, always searching, encountering and responding, weaving, following invisible lines.
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From the Center (1981)
Video Installation
3/4" Umatic
From the Center is a video installation of twelve channels / monitors placed in a circle. It is a circular monument, a vision of Manhattan, a contemplation of natural and urban energies, evoking primitive architectures and ancestral symbols using multiple angles from macro to micro looking in different directions but always from the same fixed point (the roof of the loft where the artist was living at the time). This fixed point is symbolized by a stone placed in the middle of the circle.
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Color Fields (1984)
Video Installation
Color Fields is a totally white environment that deals with light as the creator of space and explores the vibrations of color. The color projections over the four white screens (suspended from the ceiling, forming a cube in the center of the room) illuminate the whole space: the floor, the walls and the ceiling. The colors are constantly changing, forming horizons that descend slowly on the four screens at once. Peter Van Riper's sounds are pure, metallic, without melody, and their vibrations resonate in concert with the experience of color.
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TV Weave (1981)
Video Installation
This audiovisual work shows television as an electronic weaving with its lines constantly changing as they are scanned by electron beams. This installation consists of a series of regular TV sets forming a long horizontal or a large rectangle in a given space. The piece can be presented with any amount of TVs (more than five) and in different arrangements. The TVs are set to different broadcast programs and covered with black tape so that only a few of the 525 (or 625) are visible. This work explores perception, the threshold between abstract dot patterns and the forming of an image. We are so trained in watching television that we can tell a lot about the programs just by the outlines formed with as little information as only 3 or 4 lines on each screen. The music is played on suspended cut aluminum baseball bats in relationship to the changing lines of glowing dots. Closely tuned bats struck repeatedly produce overtones and reverberal sounds that fill the space. The music is recorded and played continuously.
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