Abiding (Proba Wody), 1999-2000 Still from video performance. Limited edition DVD. Courtesy the artist and Quotidian Gallery, San Francisco.
Abiding (Proba Wody), 1999 - 2000
Abiding (Proba Wody) is a video projection consisting of a 9-minute single channel video documenting series of live immersions of the
artist's head and face into the surface of water. These immersion acts were filmed by a video camera mounted from above the bathtub, however the projected image shows only the close-ups
of her face slowly and continuously immersing itself under the surface of water and raising above it. Each immersion looks almost the same, varying only slightly according to her movements
inside the water. The head and the face are never entirely under or above the surface of water, floating in between. The objective of the projection is to translate the state of being inside
and outside (of water) into a single, flat, painterly image.
The sound was composed of the recording of the artist playing improvised piano, which was later altered digitally, its volume raising and descending according to the movement of the artist's
head above and under the surface of water.
The sound was produced in collaboration with Alison Lune (Jamie Guggino).
Abiding (Proba Wody) explores the relationship between body and object, inside and outside, using water and face to render, as in a painting, an eternally captured moment. As with
other projects in the Vessels series, this work is the artist attempt to establish a formal and symbolic order where the body (more poignantly, her own body) is both seen as a vessel prone
to overflowing in its fragility, as well as a site of transcendence. Evoking ideas of baptism and ritual, the project investigates how water shapes and "draws" the surface of face while
presenting an underlying threat of drowning. "Proba wody" in Polish signifies trial by water, a medieval practice of torture executed on individuals suspected of heretical behavior.
Water evokes in me a desire to immerse myself, to be inside and away from the world, as if hiding in (not from) death and disappearance. At the Quotidian Gallery Abiding was projected outside
the building onto the surface of its wall; a private ceremonial act become a public display, focusing on the fluidity of surface, of the wall of the building, the water, and the face. (Monika Weiss)
