Scene shifts in six movements

video, stereo sound, 15min.

Words shape our impressions and form our history. In 'Scene Shifts, in Six Movements' a journey through historical layers of various locations on several continents unfolds. However, it is primarily an intellectual journey. The locations, images, texts and music hold references to a long history of cross-cultural misinterpretations.

A recurring theme within the work is the perspective of visitors in unfamiliar places (such as Tanhoe Bertin’s – a character from Bernard Dadié’s novel from 1959, description of arriving in Paris for the first time).

Through a number of seemingly disparate vignettes, containing a complex map of images, sound, text and spoken word, Ruscica plays with our understanding of place, time and history to create an expansive story across centuries and continents. The audience is called upon to interpret and consider the act of interpretation within the work – things are not as they might seem and repeat viewings encourage alternative understandings.

A tracking shot takes us through an empty city boulevard, the narrator explains the changing effect of the place upon him. ‘Everyone here is on a stage and plays a role’, he states as the camera pans up to reveal the facade of a film set – a simulation of a generic cobbled city street, viewed through a cinematic eye, perhaps Paris or perhaps somewhere else in Europe. In other scenes, a woman describes an experience at an airport border – discovering gesture as an alternative to spoken language, a man fantasises about the image sent on the back of his postcard and a harpsichord recital is performed on a chinoiserie-decorated instrument. These ‘shifts’ enforce the idea that place is a constructed subjective experience, as one character states – ‘the landscape is a wild wavy line’.

written by Sam Watson for the exhibition ‘Scene Shifts’ as part of the Space Release program at CIRCA, Newcastle