Moth 04
Charlotte MOTH presents a film comprised of a sequence of black-and-white photographs and nine photographic prints (entrance hall) under the titles The Absent Forms (2010) and The Protagonists (2010) respectively. Reflective, translucent and opaque panels, as well as objects including balls and a plant, become protagonists in a series of illuminated crepuscular and nocturnal scenes which take place on a tree lined cul-de-sac. The remarkable modernist buildings of the Paris street – designed as a totality by the little-known architect Robert Mallet-Stevens and constructed in 1926–27 – become like a stage set for the dramatisation of the mechanics of the photographic image, and reprise the street’s scenic role in a number of film productions in which Mallet-Stevens collaborated, including the Josephine Baker vehicle La sirène des tropiques (1927). Textual fragments written in response to Man Ray’s 1929 film Les Mystères du Château de Dé (which uses a Mallet-Stevens-designed villa as a set) intercut the images, while the soundtrack comprises a recording of an improvised drumming session performed in response to the work by the artist Sean Dower.
Moth 04
Charlotte MOTH presents a film comprised of a sequence of black-and-white photographs and nine photographic prints (entrance hall) under the titles The Absent Forms (2010) and The Protagonists (2010) respectively. Reflective, translucent and opaque panels, as well as objects including balls and a plant, become protagonists in a series of illuminated crepuscular and nocturnal scenes which take place on a tree lined cul-de-sac. The remarkable modernist buildings of the Paris street – designed as a totality by the little-known architect Robert Mallet-Stevens and constructed in 1926–27 – become like a stage set for the dramatisation of the mechanics of the photographic image, and reprise the street’s scenic role in a number of film productions in which Mallet-Stevens collaborated, including the Josephine Baker vehicle La sirène des tropiques (1927). Textual fragments written in response to Man Ray’s 1929 film Les Mystères du Château de Dé (which uses a Mallet-Stevens-designed villa as a set) intercut the images, while the soundtrack comprises a recording of an improvised drumming session performed in response to the work by the artist Sean Dower.