Produced in Amsterdam, Magic & Loss employs narrative reduction and documentary precision to depict a group of people packing and removing the contents of an apartment. The work questions the aftermath of uninhabited private space through silently choreographed action. The methodical movements of packing boxes, carrying the apartment’s contents to the street, and hoisting the furniture to the ground creates a silent, mysterious narrative. The detachment of the movers’ action prompts the deliberation of the original inhabitant’s history and the life they lived here. In the simplest, practical terms, what happens when an individual disappears and their private living space is disbanded? Magic & Loss adopts the eponymous album by Lou Reed, which reacted to the loss of several friends. This melancholic tone casts its shadow over the process of removal at work in this private space, whereby an individual becomes increasingly anonymous.
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Project for a Revolution
Johanna Billing
2000, 00:03:11
