Inasmuch as It Is Always Already Taking Place

Inasmuch as It Is Always Already Taking Place (QuickTime)

The installation by Gary Hill is described in MoMA's Video Spaces exhibition notes:

The sixteen stripped-down monitors in Hill's Inasmuch..., which range in size from the eyepiece of a camera to the dimensions of an adult rib cage, are set on a shelf recessed five feet into the wall, slightly below eye level. The size of each monitor corresponds to the size of the particular section of the body recorded on the video loop: a soft belly that rises and falls with each breath, a quadrant of a face with a peering eye. The arrangement of the monitors does not follow the logical organization of a human skeleton. Representations of Hill's ear and arched foot lie side by side; tucked modestly behind them is an image of his groin... The long, nervelike wires attached to each monitor are bundled together like spinal chords and snaked along the shelf, to disappear from view at the back of the recess.

I saw this at MoMA in May 2005. There was an uncomfortable clash between the intimacy of the imagery (naked flesh) and the coldness of the technology (exposed cables). The looped images kept changing, each monitor at a different rate - some moving constantly, others rarely flickering to life. There was also voiceover narration that was audible if you leaned in close to the recessed shelf. These elements helped keep the work from feeling static.