Trigger Project

The “Trigger Project“ goes on. The New York artist and media theorist Jordan Crandall presents the development and theory of his latest dual projection installation “Trigger“ here in Oldenburg.

The exhibition began with a workshop on filming “Trigger“ and has turned our exhibition hall into a film set for the duration of the show.
The concept of the new work, process and results of the workshop can be seen in the upper exhibiton hall.
“Trigger“ has two soldiers in each other’s sights, hunting. The camera is equal to a weapon and the “Trigger“ takes on the metaphor of the impulse that ‚takes the shot‘ - both in concrete action as well as indifferent and individually loaded emotions.

Crandall’s works have stunningly concrete parallels with the actual political situation. “Armed Vision“, a term Crandall uses in his writing, can also be said to describe the subject of his work with new media.
Our vision is being increasingly ‘militarized‘. Military technologies have as much an influence on society as do the media.
The images of surveillance and night vision cameras, hidden cameras and, above all, reports from the front – filmed with highly specialized military technologies – influence our everyday life and convey a feeling of security and control over a world that seems out of control.
The hype to take action and fight rises and the chances of success seem to be in reach when specialized technologies visualize the hits.
Tension and desire are heightened and the fight can take many forms such as the ‘fight against terror‘, the battle of the sexes or the inner fight with oneself.

"Pulsing with tension, flesh pressed against metal, the routings of the combat device course through the body as the film courses through the projector.
Careful breaths, quickening heartbeats, and the small vibrations of the finger mix with the staccato of the gear-driven celluloid.
An eye locked on a viewfinder, a body held immobile, an image-target moving across the field of vision. What moves, how does it move, how can that movement be tracked, intercepted, recorded, re-presented? All of the moving elements synchronized in the explosive moment of "getting the shot."
A target-object to be seen, saved, eliminated in a process of division: I/you, us/them, here/there. Body and machine meeting in a trigger device, awaiting the explosive act of engagement.
Seeing-naming-firing. Perception orchestrated, positions and borders drawn, movements and forms contoured. A victim-picture captured in the routings between perception, technology, and the pacings of the body."

(Jordan Crandall on "Trigger")