Laure Prouvost: Monolog

On view 1 – 30 June 2015

A door slams shut, the film begins. ‘Thank you for coming’, the artist says laconically. For a split second spectators glimpse an image of a fresh lung. The hand attached to the speaking torso that fills the screen suddenly points to the right into the audience: ‘I am talking to you, there!’

As a spectator, you feel as though caught in the act. The artist moans about the projection, which she finds lacking in quality and size – she is after all deprived of her head, arms and legs. She asks you if you’re cold, then lets you warm up around an image of a campfire. And before you know it, you get sucked in by a heady mix of instructions or orders and flashes of seemingly random images, but also translation errors and misunderstandings resulting from the gaps between spoken language and written text.

Laure Prouvost’s Monolog also succinctly explores the potential embarrassment caused by the screening situation: ‘I don’t mind you talking.’ Once again you feel found out. Then she’s showing you holiday pictures: a sailing yacht on a blue sea with young people wearing swimming trunks and bikinis: ‘Unfortunately we are here, not there.’ ‘How true’, you think. ‘Concentrate!’ – ‘I am not making things up.’ Cut!
(Inke Arns)

Laure Prouvost (born 1978 in Lille, France) studied at Central St Martins College of Arts. She currently lives and works in London, where she has long been collaborating with LUX, the UK’s leading agency for the support and promotion of video art.

Courtesy of the artist and LUX, London