An installation of film and video works by Gibson + Recoder spanning two decades, Object Lessons in Obsolescence, features many of their signature pieces in which the materiality of the media object itself overshadows its original use value as a mere functional “medium” for the moving image. In what is perhaps their most well-known work, Light Spill, a 16mm film projector is missing a take-up reel so that the film falls on the floor, turning the gallery space into an hourglass marking cinematic time. The gesture of the spill is replayed in a more recent series of works involving large quantities of iron-oxide coated magnetic mylar tape found in VHS video cassettes. VHS (Dropout), VHS (Multicasting), and other pieces in this series repurpose remnants of the obsolete Video Home System. The parallel installation of film and video works is this exhibition is aimed at fostering intermedia dialogue not only between the obsolete media artefacts on display, but also between the materiality of an earlier media culture and our current digital media hegemony which tends to overvalue immateriality.
