Jordan Crandall
Heatseeking
11 January - 17 February 2001
opening reception Thursday, 11 January, 6-8pm
Sandra Gering Gallery
476 Broome Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10013
(212) 226-8195
sandra@geringgallery.com
http://www.geringgallery.com
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An erotic imaginary of technology/body/artillery fusion, composed
through visual and rhythmic networks and contoured under the conditions
of war. - Jordan Crandall
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Heatseeking is a series of 7 films shot by artist Jordan Crandall in the
San Diego/Tijuana border region. Captured on 16mm film as well as on
video from surveillance cameras, miniature "stealth" cameras, and
infrared thermal imaging systems, Heatseeking addresses the increasingly
sophisticated and aggressive systems through which the border is policed.
Although it points specifically at a technics of control, Heatseeking is
not a one-way argument about power. In the films, Crandall evokes the
erotic tension of watching and being watched and explores the new
vectors of desire that erupt in an increasingly militaristic culture.
Crandall says: "The 'border' is not only a territorial marker but a
provisional divider, helping to contour self and body, and its policing
mechanisms have subjective dimensions. Tracking, targeting, and
identifying formats begin to seep into the way we see, behave, and
desire. They enter into the very structure of perception. The camera
marks the place of battle."
With Heatseeking, as with his previous project Drive, Crandall is
occupied with the development of a postcinematic language. Combining
cinematic formats with a military-driven "strategic seeing," he moves
toward a political language that is resonant with the visual networks in
which we are now entangled. Crandall targets the power dynamics around
contemporary moving images: "sites where body and senses are adjusted,
oriented, 'armed,' and contoured within complex new formats of movement."
Heatseeking was commissioned by InSITE2000, a bi-national project of 27
cultural institutions in the US and Mexico. It is also currently on view
in San Diego until February 25.
