Programme saison vidéo 2007 #31

S a i s o n V i d é o 2 0 0 7
To set up is simple. The questions raised less so. During a year, in 1999-2000, the artist forced himself to be photographed every day. Always the
same frame, background and expression. One photograph rapidly after another results in the video entitled Portrait. Confronted with the moving
and changing face presented in the film, it is obvious that a plural instead of a singular would have been better for the title. Indeed, it is always
the same person who appears but with 365 noticeably different faces. The hair grows, signs of tiredness appear… Time inevitably leaves its mark.
When and how should we capture a face? What is the permanent nature of a portrait worth? With this set up, Simon Webb denies the usual criteria
which consist of fixing a precise moment. What is fixed becomes elusive. The portrait in itself does not define; it guarantees the existence of a
fleeting moment to be inevitably lost. It was there, gone.
So which "it was there" does one choose to "make your portrait"? What expression should one show and how does it come through when the
photograph is taken? Added to that is the fear, referred to by Roland Barthes, of being taken for a "bad guy" on the final photo. Simon Webb's
exercise can provide some solutions.
But beyond the portrait, we are talking about time. A picture a day is a mark, a pause in continuity. To take note of the physical changes that time
implies, to document them with photographs, is above all the impression of mastering the flux of time. In vain.
Hélène Dantic
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