Fountain

Fountain, 1994. Permanent video. Monitor on the floor. Color, sound (analogue video transferred to digital), courtesy of the artist.

The video is shown on a cubic monitor, placed directly on the floor, in a corner of a room. The central figure (the Pinocchio from the eponymous 1942 Disney feature) is “de-animated” – inanimate –  while the water surrounding it flows continuously. A perfect loop simulates the regular movement of water and a linear sound recording (white noise of water flowing) accompanies the image. The schematic drawing (simple shapes, bright colors), combined with the homogeneous and regular sound of the water flowing contrast with the uneasy nature of the subject. The inscription of image and sound within a protracted time frame, with neither beginning nor end, hampers our understanding of the event and freezes the narrative dimension of the scene. The positive symbolism of the fountain (life, eternal youth) combined with an evocation of death, lends the image dialectic tension. The piece suspends in time an image simultaneously of life and death and transforms a segment of narration into a fragment of eternity.

The permanence of the piece enacts a commemorative presence while the double artifice of a looped cartoon re-creates the kind of fascination brought about by natural phenomena such as water flowing, fire burning.