Video by: John Sturgeon
color, stereo, 15 minutes © J. Sturgeon 2000
voice over & text, John Sturgeon
Arm’s Length navigates from the formal austerity of the museum, through the ambience of the city and daily life of a single parent’s familial efforts, to lumbering stalkers amid the ‘red light’ district. Produced entirely in Amsterdam, the weave of image and poetic text, movement and sound gradually reveal a portrait of the daily negotiations of human intimacy.
At this level, nuances and varying currencies of relating emerge, as do our subtle protective strategies of distancing… that keep experience at – arm’s length.
Neither admit:
the foreground of distrust,
evoked by an interplay
of transgressions
with its contrasting depth of silence
We acknowledge:
this question -
presented in juxtaposition
to a painful lack of content,
as an immersed obscurity
never penetrated.
VIDEO
He observed:
dark and light with a fascination
for a certain inclusion,
at - arm’s length
She established:
a proper relationship
from an appropriate distance
with a suitable perspective
They debate:
accents of doubt
highlighted against
the background
of inadequacy
Neither admit:
the foreground of distrust,
evoked by an interplay
of transgressions
with its contrasting depth of silence
Some question:
this negotiated tension -
its fertile undulation
derived from the obvious form
thrust forward -
We acknowledge:
this question -
presented in juxtaposition
to a painful lack of content,
as an immersed obscurity
never penetrated.
Others use:
a ruse of surface chiaroscuro
to veil the ineffable
weight and measure
of the day’s expense.
In Arm’s Length (2000), Sturgeon’s first single-channel video in over a decade of working in installation and performance, he aims his sights at a more subtle means of considering alienation in its various forms. This return to single-channel video also marks a rededication to the poetic that was beginning to decay in previous installations due to his aggressive appropriations of mass media. In this video, Sturgeon fully leaves the dreamscape of deserts, salt flats, ancient ruins, etc., and takes time to listen to what the mundane can tell us about non-rational economy. Sturgeon manages to capture the commonest sights and sounds of everyday life from such an individualized perspective that they appear as an alien presence that suggests unnamable currents circulating through the most routinized experience. For example, he shows that waiting for and riding on a tram is as good a site as any for his peculiar brand of archaeology. One can find wonders and horrors of the magnitude usually reserved for great social disasters like war, and they cannot be privatized, analyzed, owned or dissected. Such flows are far too elusive. This video insists that the impossible is possible, but frustratingly just out of reach. It wants to demonstrate the impossible to the viewer but makes no secret that ultimately it cannot. From both within and without, Arm’s Length is the representation of soft melancholy and of the will to continue the quest for understanding.
Steven Kurtz, C.A.E. (Critical Art Ensemble), Sept. 2000
Wait in advance of torture
which will slip within the space left by absence
at a moment not anticipated -
The center turns loose
amid the bush beings
incited by voluptuous hunger
Searching the dark
for night.
symptoms -
some subtle anticipation of geometry,
treasures -
held in less memory
photographs -
becoming faceless,
without name,
reverberations -
abandoned to decay
passing -
already familiar,
like the final glance
clutched from the room
reluctantly vacated
for the next…
the sweetness -
the unfathomable sweetness of moments,
as they pass...
passing through outstretched fingers
falling through spaces, we cannot hold
flickering embrace
fallen from intent
grace the fabric of our focus
passing from presence
He succumbs:
to magnetic entanglement
with doctrine and will
She embraces:
the unconscious anchor
of an enigmatic fidelity
Both profit:
by reciprocal thrift
integral to the flesh -
even, neon-red saturated flesh
They desire:
an impenetrable economy
membranes – glass, or skin
provisionally affirm
separation
All needs:
embodied in the flesh
twist through the helix
of the ancient bed
enslaved to spiral the edges of things
We wonder:
who is the prey?
what price paid?
or, debt contracted?
if, in deed, these were acknowledged at all
None escape:
this desperate negotiation
once begat -
the chosen flesh
Even as the cherished disperse,
swept away
by swirling edges of the sovereign -
Experience of the turning wheel:
supplants humility,
where the stone argues most deeply
befriends injury,
at foundation's corner
Offers silence,
no other takes away
Arm’s Length
a videotape by: John Sturgeon ©2000
featuring: Boudewijn Payens
Lila Payens
Fien Maandag
Roos Stalpars
concept, production and editing:
John Sturgeon
motion effects:
Dan Hoffman
additional music: “VAT-I-CAN”
Michael Pestel & John Sturgeon © 1992
recorded: Amsterdam, The Netherlands - 1998
poetry and voice over:
John Sturgeon
thanks to support from:
Boudewijn Payens - for his generous hospitality
© 2000, John Sturgeon
JOHN STURGEON
Accents of Doubt
Video by: John Sturgeon
color, stereo, 7 minutes © J. Sturgeon 2011
Accents of Doubt was a reedited version of Arm’s Length ©2000. Much of the general structure, poetry and visual impact of was left intact, but certain sections were shortened significantly resulting in a seven minute version.
