Anna moore

three channel video & sound installation
6 min. loop
2007

Anna Moore considers the subjectivity of Anna Moore as a character depicted within the post-war era genres of psychological melodrama and film noir. These films ranging from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s illustrated female characters in very distinct, yet contradictory, ways that echoed the larger issues and fears concerned with the roles of women in the post-war society. The characters within these films were frequently portrayed as compliant, sexually repressed, hysterical, or as independent, aggressive femme fatales, often within the same film. Anna Moore combines the film genre framework with structuralist investigations of cinematic codes, mise-en-scène, character, and narrative. The work explores how historic aspects of setting, camera movement, framing, costumes, props, lighting, gesture, music, and the voice-over influence our assumptions about character and story.

In the video and sound installation, Anna is fractured across three video projections and one audio track engaging the viewer in the formation of character and her positions within a narrative. In one video projection Anna repeats everyday actions in an endless loop as the video frame slips back in time revealing glimpses of a mysterious and altering event. Another video portrays Anna in an unexplained cycle of fury and distress. At the same time a third video expresses Anna’s sexual desire in a slow colorful fantasy. Throughout the installation Anna’s disembodied voice addresses the viewer while recalling events past. The subjectivity of Anna Moore’s character is created through the combination of these components and the viewer’s cinematic imagination and history.

*also see these additional single channel versions: In This Place (Anna Moore) and Double Bind (Anna Moore) and photography

credits:
Director: Julie Orser
Cast: Anna - Sarah Kraft
Voice of Anna - Leela Grant
Assistant Director: Jon Irving
Camera: Julie Orser
Camera Assistant: Carol Gehring
Hair & Make-Up Artist: Kim Donohue
Voice-Over Script: Jon Irving
Crew: Carol Gehring, Jon Irving, Jennifer L. Porter, Matt Sobel, Natasha Subramaniam
Editor and Sound Design: Julie Orser
Music: Appropriated excerpts from Franz Waxman, Rebecca, Sunset Boulevard, Peyton Place
Appropriated excerpts from David Raskin, Laura
Still Photography Assistants: Carol Gehring & Natasha Subramaniam
Special Thanks: Jon Irving, Matt Lipps, Deborah Martin, Mack McFarland, Carol Moore,
Jennifer L. Porter, and P.N.C.A. And to Herb Thompson & Nina Thompson for the additional art direction of their lovely home.