Charlemagne Palestine used video in the 1970s as an extension of his performances. The monitor screen stands between the isolated figure and the spectator, reproducing a configuration of internment and voyeurism.
Facing the total darkness of the image, we first become aware of murmurs, a laugh, a breath, the lead-in to a syncopated chant. The man precedes the image, his physical presence seems to break the barriers of the void. In the blackness, then the dimness, two red points emerge. These eyes form luminous holes like a dark mirror of our projected gaze. The face forms around these two points, snickering, roaring, shaken by violent spasms and swinging.
The madman shakes his chains, howls his refusals, and stares at us in the unbearable position of passive spectators frozen at the doors of this asylum. “Why was I chosen?” he repeats tirelessly, then returns to the shadows.

Stéphanie Moisdon
Translated by Phoebe Green