When I pass a corridor in a building, for me, it makes a refers to a way of acting or a to a set behavioral codes. My work is generally inspired by interior designed spaces that seem to have certain personalities and attitudes already in place in the rooms. Architects and interior designers surely incorporate these behaviors into their own blue print plans, but then I react to their possible expectations and set my own stage. I use these places as stages, which usually become a screen for the video to perform on top of.

As I mostly work with video installation, I aim to experience these ideas and possibilities through performance and by playing them out. This is a way for me to understand how my own views relate to places that are already constructed. Although, I use actors in my practice, my work is personal by using them to collaborate about ideas for the drama or actions that could occur in that location. Much of the time, I have found that how I feel I ought to act in a designed space is different than my interpretations of the place.

Jet Lag (2003) is a diptych video installation, where two small scale separate video projections lie on top of two photographs of advertisements of first class jet plane interiors. The two hybrid installations show actors superimposed using video projection, onto the surface of the pictures of jets, moving back and forth from a public cocktail lounge area to the private sleeping quarters. There is a gap in between the two pictures, where the actors travel to get from one space to the other. The video projections are synchronized, so that when an actor leaves the room, they enter the other one in real time.

The performance was shot at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in July 2003. I created two faux environments, using found furniture at the museum, and posed it in the same perspective and design as that of the advertisements. Once it was all situated, I draped the rooms with white fabric. The performers were given forty minutes to hang out there, creating their own narratives and interpretations of the places. Since they are not where they appear to be, there were certain tensions as they moved around for them to fit well with the jet cabins.

ALSO SEE

> Nicole Cohen: Jet Lag
> Artist's CV [96KB PDF]

EXTERNAL WEBSITES

> Nicole Cohen

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