Films

Comprehensive monograph

Comprehensive monograph on the US artist TJ Wilcox (*1965), living in New York. Wilcox uses a combination of found footage, collaged animation and his own film to make mini-narratives.

Wilcox’s films collage his own footage with images from cinema, television, and handmade animation into mythical romantic narratives. The mechanism by which T.J. Wilcox’s imagery comes to us is familiar. Shot in Super 8, either as original footage or from preexisting film playing on a video monitor, it is transferred to video for editing, and then onto 16 mm film for presentation. The visual noise necessarily introduced at each of these stages adds character and interest. There is no danger of us succumbing to the illusion of transparency, of believing that we are sharing any kind of simple present, either with the characters on the screen or the subject matter in general. Instead, the sequence of successive transfers between formats and technologies gives the imagery a sort of patina. It suggests not only temporal distance, the weight of history, but also a shift in the equilibrium of the senses. Blurring and de-definition excite both visual and mental exertion, and while the sound of the 16 mm projector is commanding within the gallery space, the silence of the subtitled film itself indexes the impossibility of hearing the implied voices. They are muffled by layers of possible meaning, inaudible because too far away or too long ago.

Published with the support of Metro Pictures, New York.