Sunday, January 29, 2012

John Knecht: Deluge and Anima
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Deluge (2010) hand-drawn looping animation
Anima (2011) hand-drawn looping animation

Artist Statement:
Things have been falling in my videos for decades. It was at first formal. Falling things filled the frame and made a complicated cinematic space. The things falling -- wishbones, test tubes, martini glasses, plastic strawberries that looked like a human heart, cement blocks and infected molars -- increasingly became an atmosphere, functioning both as a formal device and a metaphorical space.

There is a drawing in the collection of the Queen, hanging in Buckingham Palace, by Leonardo daVinci which depicts a deluge of raining everyday objects: rakes, funnels, lamps and general debris. The title of the drawing is "A Cloudburst of Material Things." It is graphite on paper and credited to daVinci. It is dated 1500. The drawing is torn in half so only a part of the drawing remains. I have struggled to find out more about the piece and there is virtually nothing written about it, but I am haunted by it. "Deluge" is directly informed by the overwhelmed totality of daVinci's image. What was he thinking?