The Dead - Vito Acconci

(2017, loop, HD video, 27“ flatscreen LCD monitor, mirrored cylinder, directional speaker) Part of an ongoing series of cylindric/anamorphic video reliquaries entitled The Dead. Conceived as cylindric/anamorphic video shrines, they form a growing posthumous group with portraits of people, whom I have known or met just once and who have since passed away, this one in memory of artist, poet and architect Vito Acconci (Jan 24, 1940 – Apr 27, 2017). Videos of friends and strangers are presented on upward facing screens with a central cylindric mirror, the portraits geometrically distorted. In the cylindric reflection, the original likeness becomes recognizable again. The mirror not only acts as the key to decipher the coded form of the 2-dimensional video but allows the viewer to walk around the image creating the illusion of the luminous apparitions literally rising from their electromagnetic grave. Loop and cylindrical anamorphosis suggest a utopian possibility of eternal preservation, reminis