The Power Plant

Unfortunately, the live performance of Critical Mass was cancelled. Instead, artist Kerry Tribe gave a FREE lecture about her practice and the current exhibition Kerry Tribe: Speak, Memory, and also presented compelling video documentation of Critical Mass.

Using the domestic dispute of a young couple as its raw material, Critical Mass is the third part of Hollis Frampton’s classic structural film series Hapax Legomena (1971–72). After recording an improvised performance on two 100’-reels of 16mm film, Frampton edited the material in an increasingly complex and frenetic series of cuts, resulting in a rhythmic syllabic cacophony. For her performance of the same name, artist Kerry Tribe works with Reed Windle and Jasmine Woods, two professional actors. First transcribing then memorizing the entire text of the film, the actors restage Critical Mass shot for shot. In Tribe’s version, the actors perform the words exactly as they are heard in the film including all interruptions, partial words and stutter effect. She transforms the piece so that the editing of the film becomes embedded in the performance itself. Critical Mass is Tribe’s first live performance project and continues the investigation into personal and historic memory found in her moving-image works.

Programmed and Co-presented with

Images Festival, 12 – 21 April, 2012 imagesfestival.com