Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Fantasized Persons and Taped Conversations

by Taru Elfving, Nicholas Serota, Kaja Silverman

A father tells the story of himself and his life through the members of his family, who are hanging laundry, and who mouth the words that he speaks for them. Five girls aged 13 to 15 share their experiences and thoughts on sex while playing basketball, hanging out with friends, and passing around porn magazine clippings. A man in a state of psychosis creates a woman for himself, Anne, who appears in seven different versions. A woman crawls over a bridge; curtains sway; a teenage girl lies down in a muddy puddle in front of her home; anger takes the form of wind in a woman's apartment; a woman starts to hear voices in her house, so she darkens the rooms and shuts out all images. This is the world of "Fantasized Persons and Taped Conversations" that acclaimed Finnish artist Eija-Liisa Ahtila reveals to the viewer. Through experimental narrative storytelling techniques that explore the possibilities of narration in multiscreen installations and split screens, and the connection between short films and commercials, Ahtila tells what she calls psychodramas, seeing the light in flawed relationships, failing families, the things that drive people apart and drive them insane. Ordinary tales, of ordinary humans, suffering ordinary lives--depending on what we mean by ordinary.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2003