Iris (2006) Video/Music 4.30 min

(1:37 min SD preview)

The structure Iris is vertical. There is a suggested development in the storyline, but it is not logical enough to be called a narrative, it is rather a lyrical structure. Time is compressed or stretched, often in slow motion, presented as repeated gestures (although I never use the same shot more than once). The video/music work Iris (2006) begins in an absurd and cliché act as a female character jumps up anddown on a blue couch wearing a multicolored striped sweater, pink panties with a picture of a rainbow and yellow socks. While the music consists of a soft piano and a low fragile singing voice, the character jumps cheerfully almost as competing in a game of some sort until jumping out of the frame and as the screen turns black, the music takes the lead, stirring the imagination of the viewer in the absence of the image. In short, rapid cuts the video reveals the body again, jumping repeatedly in mid-air in a visual play with the staccato rhythm of the piano. Cut to a wide shot of the character jumping from the couch, the movement repeatedly edited in mid-air. Cut to an angle of her landing on a bed, cutting again to a closer frame of the body almost as being violently thrown down again and again onto the bed, while the music continues unaffected in a soothing, softly sung lullaby. Cut to a new angle framing the white wall, the body as if flying up. Again, cutting to a higher angle, the movement of the body as if it is trying to jump higher, as if now jumping in attempts to perfect the motion. The music becomes increasingly sentimental as the image gradually slows down, the body glides through the air in slow motion, the sweater creating a faded image of a rainbow in the frame while the character is almost as floating softly and controlled in the air as the visual has reached its cadence. The image and music’s atmosphere is finally synchronized, emerged, expressing the same emotion. The screen turns black while the music winds down the piece. In Iris the editing of the video contrasted to the music is where the language of this work is created.








© Dodda Maggý