Bennett, A 2017, ‘I am looking in a room’, four channel video loop data-projection, Trocadero Gallery Studio Windows, West Projections Festival 11-27 August 2017, https://www.westprojections.com

‘I am looking in a room’: video portraits of peering into a window at night

This snippet of video is a small taste of a larger installation that loops across the four windows of the Trocadero Art Space studios. You will have to walk down Hopkins Street Footscray at night to see the entire work! The West Projections Festival runs 11-27 August 2017 and the artist Alison Bennett will be part of the Hopkins Street Strut artist talks 6-7pm Saturday 26 August.

“This work was made in response to the location, standing on Hopkins Street looking up into the windows of the Trocadero Art Space studios. I was interested in the somewhat voyeuristic feeling of peering up into a lit window at night and, in turn, attempting to connect with the street life on the footpath below.

During the making of the work, the first subject simply pulled out their phone and ignored the camera. They then introduced me to Alvin Lucier’s astounding 1969 sound artwork ‘I am sitting in a room’. The second subject improvised choreography in response to that artwork.

I have a long-standing interest in the cultural convergence of screens, windows and image frames, as articulated by Friedberg (2006) in ‘The Virtual Window: Alberti to Microsoft‘. I wanted to explore the ambiguous and shifting positions between looking in and looking out, the feeling of being inside and outside, hence the title ‘I am looking in a room’, with a hat tip to Lucier.”