videotapes in polypropylene sleeves, paper, acrylic paint
140.0 x 100.0 x 10.0 （厘米）
55.1 x 39.4 x 3.9 （吋）
Digest is a multi-channel video installation consisting of 1001 videotapes that are permanently
sealed in polypropylene video sleeves. The analogue contents carried on
each buried videotape remain unrevealed. The series of painted tapes is arranged on
shallow wooden racks that evoke the display aesthetics of video rental stores, commemorating
a mode of image consumption that has since slipped into obsolescence.
Each painted tape in the Digest Archive features a single verb drawn from the title of a
film that was in circulation during the era of home video. Collectively, the verbs describe
an embodied subjectivity that has come under increasing threat in the digital era.
First debuted on the Sharjah Biennial 14 (in early 019), Digest is an accumulating archive
that Breitz will continue to grow. In Basel, a unique grid of 25 new Digest paintings
is presented for the first time. Like other grids drawn from the Digest Archive, the work
proposes an open-ended narrative via the selection and juxtaposition of particular
verbs. In this instance, the selected verbs evoke political struggle, the ongoing dialogue
between structures of authority and those seeking justice within such structures:
To control, to rule, to command, to silence, to boycott, to strike, to riot, to resist,
to rebel, to act…
