FACELESS – THE SPECTRAL CHILDREN (UK/AT 2006, 15 min)
multiscreen video by Manu Luksch based on interventions in public and commercial surveilled spaces
surround Dolby surround 5.1 soundtrack by mukul
co-produced by Amour Fou and Ambient Information Systems
language: English
Video installation that uses CCTV images obtained under the UK Data Protection Act as 'legal readymades (objets trouvés)'. Four screens simultaneously show the story of the Spectral Children from the multi-angle view of the CCTV control room. The work is made under the rules of the 'Manifesto for CCTV Filmmakers'.
Limited edition. contact Gallery Barry Keldoulis (Sydney)
london, 2033
new towers mark the skyline
glass facades flashing code
to the central watchtower
a holographic web
of risk and trade
woven through the data cloud
of radioactive smog
that chokes those overlooked
by the optical revolution
far below, in the nether city
in the pavlovian underbelly
familiar patterns repeat
ad infinitum
except... look:
Ma Nu is moving home
in an anarchic break
from the everyday drone
back at work:
the daily grind
at the Daily Myth
Ma Nu shapes worldviews
by shuffling old data
into new news
unfamiliar surroundings beget
a sleepless night
full of lurking anxiety
half-remembered encounters
or half-forgotten myths?
in the morning:
is Ma Nu out of sync?
time passes dizzyingly fast
but all are oblivious
light-headed
she stumbles to work
panic!
where everyone else has a gaping void
Ma Nu has
- a face!
out, damned face!
but it does not wash off
so Ma Nu fashions a mask
to cover the abomination
and her retreat from the office
to a secluded place:
maskless Ma Nu breathes easier
and puzzles over her face
and her newly-paced timespace
at a loss, adrift, at wit's end:
alone she cannot proceed
she must seek out an oracle
the oracle speaks
of time's acceleration
and its eternal return
that has eclipsed peoples' faces
and rendered humans uninhabitated
for years
"but hope lies in the spectral child
seek her out
(many hundreds you may find)
by following her heart
she slips through time
and through her dance
of every face she reminds."