Liz Magic Laser

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1. In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 5 minutes excerpted from 121 minutes. Produced by Malmö Konsthall in collaboration with SVT.

2. For In Camera, Laser takes the structure of a television news program as the basis for an adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit. The three characters in the play are recast in archetypical news program roles: an anchorman in the studio, a reporter on location and a “real” person who gives testimony in a domestic space. The video installation is composed of feeds of each of the three characters, as well as teleprompter footage of the script and a view of Laser and the technical crew in a television news studio control room. Laser rehearsed the play with the actors in the same space, but it was performed and filmed with each actors in separate locations: in an SVT television news studio in Malmö, on the street in Gustav Adolfs Torg also in Malmö, and in the Finn Juhl House at Ordrupgaard, Denmark (a museum and the former home of the late Danish architect). The performers had to communicate through a satellite conference call that imposed a three-second delay. Only the anchorman in the studio could communicate via the live feed video of the reporter on the scene. All three video channels were filmed simultaneously in a single take. This produced a heightened situation in which the performers, technical crew and Laser had to confront technical communication breakdowns. Laser’s process came to parallel Sartre’s plot of people trapped in their relationships in a room they could not escape. Sartre’s allegory about a hellish three-way dynamic becomes an instrument for navigating the relationship between current events, the news media and the public.

   Credits:
   Featuring actors Anders E Larsson, Karin Hallén and Maria Lindh. Produced by Malmö Konsthall in collaboration with SVT. Script adapted by Liz Magic Laser and Sofia Pontén from Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit (Huis Clos) (1944). Other collaborators include Assistant Director: Sofia Pontén; Curator: Jacob Fabricius; Production Coordinator: Mats Fastrup; Technical Director at SVT: Olof Tilly; Broadcasting Producer at SVT: Nader Hammoud; Still Photographers: Kasper Akhøj, Amanda Nordgren and Sebastian Peña; Production Assistants: Anna Johansson, Cindy Lee and Karin Rydberg; DOP at The Finn Juhl House: Martin Top Jacobsen; DOP at Gustav Adolfs torg: Lars-Gunnar Bengtsson. Special Thanks to The Finn Juhl House, Ordrupgaard, Denmark. Video features a painting by Vilhelm Lundstrøm of Hanne Wilhelm Hansen.

3. Related Material+ Liz Magic Laser, Kaleidoscope Magazine, Fall 2012 Focus: Liz Magic Laser, Frieze Magazine, September 2012

4. 

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 121 minutes, installation view, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden.

    

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 121 minutes, installation view, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden.

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 121 minutes, installation view, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden.

    

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, production still, digital c-print, 50.8 x 76.2 cm. Featuring Anders E Larsson as Joseph Garcin and Maria Lindh as Estelle Rigault in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos. Photo: Kasper Akhøj.

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actor Maria Lindh.

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actor Anders E Larsson.

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actors Karin Hallén and Anders E Larsson.

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. 

   

   In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actor Maria Lindh.

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 121 minutes, installation view, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden.

      

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 121 minutes, installation view, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden.

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, five-channel video, 121 minutes, installation view, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden.

      

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, production still, digital c-print, 50.8 x 76.2 cm. Featuring Anders E Larsson as Joseph Garcin and Maria Lindh as Estelle Rigault in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos. Photo: Kasper Akhøj.

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actor Maria Lindh.

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actor Anders E Larsson.

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actors Karin Hallén and Anders E Larsson.

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. 

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     In Camera, Liz Magic Laser, 2012, a Malmö Konsthall commission, five-channel video, 121 minutes, video still. Featuring actor Maria Lindh.