Guide for a Parade with Two Masks   (2004)

Guide for a Parade with Two Masks   (2004)

(Alf, Hamlet of Shellness, Isle of Sheppey, UK and Stefan, Roosevelt Island, New York)
80 x 35mm slide carousel slide projection,
4 minutes

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As part of a larger project, Design for a Carnival, Adam Chodzko created a series of three 81 x 35mm slide projections (Pattern for a Procession with Two Masks, 2007, Guide for a Parade with Two Masks and Plan for a Parade with Two Masks both 2004).  Each propose a carnival route for the viewer, alternating consecutive slides between the ‘wearing’ of one Mask Filter (over the camera lens) and another, and between one location and another. Guide for a Parade with Two Masks uses the Hamlet of Shellness, on the Isle of Sheppey, not far from where Chodzko lives in Kent, UK, with Alf, its caretaker, leading him through the mostly vacant properties for that mostly seasonal community.  This place then alternates with a walk through the streets of Roosevelt Island, New York led by Stefan.
Similarly, for each of the three processions in this series Chodzko was led by a local guide, often a child, sometimes a passerby, on a meandering path through their territory.  The final image sequence is a proposition for a possible parade route, impossible to fulfil physically because of its vacillation between two global sites, therefore existing as deferral, a suggestion, and an experience of a carnival procession that might therefore operate in the imagination only, in the relationship between art object and viewer.

Guide for a Parade with Two Masks uses:
Mask Filter (2004), Camera lens adapter,  car body filler, chopsticks, porcupine quills, modem lead, African and Indian bracelets, magnetic wire. Approx 23 x 26 x 40cm.
&
Mask Filter (2004),  Camera lens adapter, cable ties, luminous bones, gimp.  Approx 23 x 26 x 40cm. 

Like Better Scenery (2000 – ),  Ants Choose Position for Sequins – 2 Seconds Interval  (2003),  White Magic (2005), Because… (2013) and   O, you happy roots, branch and mediatrix  (2020) etc, Guide for a Parade with Two Masks operates in the vibrating space between two apparently disconnected sites apparently communicating with each other.  Like Night Shift  (2004),  M-path (2006),  Ghost (2010),  Props. For memorising the gravity of mime objects. (2013) the work evolves from a process and becomes a proposal for the audience to adopt a particular form of physical movement through an existing space in order to transform perception.

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