Four videos

During BURNING ICE #9 British artist and writer Tim Etchells (artistic director of Forced Entertainment) showcases four captivating videos at the Kaaistudio's: So Small, Erasure, Paint it Black and Live Forever.
 

Paint it Black (2014)

The silent video Paint it Black arises from a simple performance task in which the key lyric of the Rolling Stones song of the same name is enacted as a literal instruction. As on-screen images, adverts, texts and headlines from a range of magazines and newspapers disappear under black paint, Etchells continuous painting consigns rock stars and politicians, economists and models, natural landscapes and statistical charts to the darkness of oblivion.

Forever (Stop Frame) (2011)

The work comprises a sequence of stills showing a set of letters made from ice, arranged on a concrete floor to spell out the phrase ‘Live Forever’. Through the sequence – manifested as slow motion digital on-screen video – the letters melt slowly, getting smaller and losing their definition, as the ice gradually transforms to become a pool of water.

Erasure (2003)

Shot in a single unedited take, Erasure shows a 16-year-old boy who sits in the woods and recounts his fantasy of disappearing. The piece is part of an ongoing series of monologues-to-camera performed by different actors who appear to imagine their own futures, successes, deaths or disappearances.

So Small (2003)

A straight-to-camera, direct and intimate description of how a young woman would like it all to be after she dies. The piece is part of the samen ongoing series as Erasure. In So Small, Etchells’ comical and poignant text loops and spirals around the idea of a perfect funeral, a perfect death and a perfect reaction from friends and family.