North by Northwest

The famous scene from "North by Northwest" by Alfred Hitchcock. A two channel video installation. In the first channel the original scene, the Hitchcock film, is shown but all the characters, cars, bus and plane have been digitally removed. What is left is the landscape, the camera movements and the architecture of the sequence. The second channel, a slide projection, I act the scene, as the character played by Cary Grant. With every camera shot, the character is always looking directly at the camera. In effect the viewer becomes the "other". The car coming, the person waiting for his bus, the plane coming, the truck hurling forward....

The projections, in synch, are shown side by side. In front of the slide projector the nose of an airplane acts as a reminder of the airplane from the original scene. It also acts as a shutter, making the images vibrate, as a film projection would. The slide projection becomes in effect a fake film projection, furthering the idea of the piece.