Visual Analysis Essay: Play Dead; Real Time by Douglas Gordon
In this new age of tech-based art, many artists have found a sort of symbiosis in working with technology and electronics to foster an artistic practice. Others, like Douglas Gordon, have been “drawn to critiquing and deconstructing media technology” (MOMA). In his 2003 piece Play Dead; Real Time (this way, that way, the other way), Gordon projects an elephant on two large screens and a small monitor in a gallery space. The scale and subject matter of the images being projected leads the viewer to experience a repeated sense of displacement and discomfort. This piece uses the contrast of nature and technology to illustrate human disconnectedness from that which birthed us. This disconnectedness is embodied through our further distancing from nature through technological development and through our supposed mastery of the natural world, both of which are presented in Douglas Gordon’s Play Dead; Real Time.
To begin, this piece is not simply a projection of a video. Gordon himself filmed the four-year-old Indian circus elephant, Minnie, at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, performing actions such as playing dead, sitting down, standing up, moving forward and backwards, and begging. The installation consists of two elephant-sized screens set up at a perpendicular angle and a small monitor placed on the floor, onto which different versions of the video are projected. Each video is different from the other two, allowing the viewer to experience the event from a range of perspectives rather than a single static viewpoint. The videos are in colour with no audio, and the room in which they are shown is dark and empty but for the screens themselves. The videos shown on the two screens and monitor are 19 minutes 16 seconds, 14 minutes 44 seconds, and 23 minutes 44 seconds, respectively.
This piece addresses many themes and can be interpreted very differently depending upon the viewers’ relationship to both the artist and the subject of the art. For some, Play Dead; Real Time is a representation of the duality of control and free will, presented in the form of a wild animal obeying the orders of something which in reality is in no way superior to the animal. Most commonly, viewers are made to feel a sense of displacement at the sight of a life-size elephant being projected in a gallery space. This juxtaposition of “the warmth of an actual, breathing life form comes up against the necessarily cold, spare gallery walls and floors” (Untapped NY) in such a way that the viewer is made uneasy with the scene being presented and what it implicates for the elephant. By being witness to an animal in a space wholly inappropriate and unnatural to its normal habitat, the viewer is implicated in the mistreatment of said animal and is made uncomfortable. This piece also functions as a reimagination of a circus-like atmosphere, with the careful control of the wild being on display for human consumption. For Gordon, this piece is based on “our own remembrances of circuses, zoos, nature documentaries, and all the various situations where the chaotic power of the wild is held safely at a distance and controlled” (Gagosian NY). As the title suggests, the performance of tricks such as playing dead by the elephant makes the viewer complicit in the event, which is understood to be somewhat sadistic in nature. This plays upon the collective memory of most viewers’ experience with animals in captivity, and the childlike wonder they exhibited at the torture and mistreatment of animals during trips to the zoo and the circus. Many viewers may not understand the feeling they experience in the presence of Play Dead; Real Time and will attribute their uneasiness to the experience of true aesthetic enjoyment of a work of art. Others, however, will understand the underlying criticism of those actions being depicted and the insinuation that the viewer is involved in that mistreatment of Minnie, resulting in a feeling of repulsion and denial of their enjoyment of the piece for ethical reasons.
At the time this piece was made, many artists were creating work in conversation with nature; either involving the natural world in the work directly or commenting on human beings’ relationship to nature. This inherent interest in the natural world stems from a human desire to reassess society’s obsession with technology, attempt to return to past respect for nature, and reach a level of collaboration between nature and our technology-based society. Douglas Gordon investigates this as well, using the elephant Minnie to represent a larger natural concept and the gallery space as well as the medium of the work as a stand-in for human development. By doing so he both uses nature as a mode of intervention on the viewer's life in a tech-based world and addresses the effect of human development on the natural world.
In conclusion, Douglas Gordon uses nature and technology in Play Dead; Real Time to subvert the viewers’ own biases about technology and their memories of the natural world and attempt to find a balance between nature and technology. He does this through the content of the piece, Minnie the elephant, and the material with which she is filmed and presented. He also achieves this by playing upon the gallery space as an institution representing civilized existence and the wild nature of the animal and human beings. Doing so allows for a reevaluation of our society's preoccupation with being the most advanced species and suggests the possibility of harmony between nature and science. Although this disruption of the gallery space is done successfully, the media and mode of creation of Play Dead; Real Time suggests that those things which Gordon is attempting to subvert are, in fact, essential to his creation of the piece. Thus, his message is presented in a somewhat unclear and potentially biased way, which may further the viewer's beliefs of superiority and mastery of the natural world. This begs the question of whether technology is too deeply ingrained in our way of life for a harmonious relationship with nature to be fostered.