Cinemascope (2016)
Gramophone cabinet, interactive video projection, electronics, brass
51 x 51 x 100cm

The Cinemascope is a participatory video-apparatus built inside an original Edison gramophone cabinet. By peering inside the brass eyepiece and turning the handle, participants control the video playback speed of a media-archaeological performance: a reenactment of Edison’s kinescope film ‘Newark Athlete’ from 1891.

In this performance, not only the original content of the film, but also its archival artefacts, are reenacted. The jolted frame-flow from Edison’s film are reproduced in the Sebes’ performance, as she mimics the athlete’s seemingly disjointed limbs and reacts to the spots and scratches of the film like ghostly apparitions in the room. As this imagery mimics that Edison’s film, it acts as a mirror held up against time’s flow. Reflecting back into the past, it forges a bilateral exchange over centuries.

Image credits: Isobel Markus Dunworth and Lottie Sebes. Produced and edited by Lottie Sebes