Circular Track

Due to the process-based nature of the Session program, this project will undergo constant modifications; the features of this page provide accruing information on the project’s developments.

On August 7, 2013 Elizabeth Orr will begin work on Circular Track as part of Recess’s signature program, Session. Session invites artists to use Recess’s public space as studio, exhibition venue and grounds for experimentation.

For Circular Track, Orr will research the ways in which choreographed movement constructs narrative. Using the tracking shot to explore how representation operates in video, film and performance, Orr will create her own circular track and dolly system while developing a comprehensive understanding of the historical use of the tracking shot. Her Session will culminate in a performance with the circular track along with an exhibition of her research.

The track and dolly will initiate and record specific performances, sculptures, and writings throughout the project as an exercise in organizing movement and dialogue. These videos and performances will illuminate the vantage point of a kinetic, circular shot, while queering traditional, linear narrative.

Orr will posit cyclical movement as an alternative to the hierarchy and linearity of centralized power. In Circular Track, one moves around the subject/object to frame and produce it. A circling decentralized visual authority, will invite a reorganizing of cinematic language, interjecting new frequencies into the canon of film history.

Developed in tandem with the performances, Orr’s research will reveal film and video as specific cultural products. In this context, camera movement operates ideologically and materially, as it is manipulated to elicit emotion, or create a shift in perspective.

Session invites artists to use Recess’s public platform to combine productive studio space with dynamic exhibition opportunities. Sessions remain open to the public from the first day of the artist’s project through the last, encouraging sustained dialogue between artists and audiences. Due to the process-based nature of Session, projects undergo constant revision and the above proposal is subject to change.