Martin Arnold (Vienna, 1959) deconstructs scenes from classic Hollywood films into small fragments that he slows down and repeats frenetically. The result is a series of loops that disrupt the continuity of the original material and strip it of its narrative meaning. As a result of this radical process of alienation and denaturalization of the relation between sound and image, the scene becomes a Dadaistic gag in which the characters’ actions acquire surprising new meanings. In this way, the family breakfast scene that Arnold deconstructs in ‘Passage à l’acte’ (1993) becomes a violent exchange of blows and monosyllables between the film’s characters. Similarly, in Alone. ‘Life Wastes Andy Hardy’ (1998), the sequence of a son kissing his mother suddenly seems like something quite different, conveying a quite distinct type of affection to that of a mother-son relationship.
Arnau Horta is an independent curator, art critic and researcher. In Spain, he curated projects for the MACBA, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the CCCB, Sónar, Caixafòrum, the Filmoteca de Catalunya, the philosophy festival Barcelona Pensa and La Casa Encendida, among others. He is Professor at the European Institute for Design (IED), and a usual contributor to the supplements ‘Cultura/s’ (La Vanguardia) and ‘Babelia’ (El País).
22 March 2017