Rachel Reupke's works are aimed at creating short-circuits between analog and digital photographic images, between static images and those in movement. All of her works organise principles for navigating between these ambiguous kinds of images. When they take the form of temporal loops, they oscillate between the extenuation of their form and the expansion of their duration. While she uses the language of film (mastery of the composition of the image, evocative power of the sound track, fictional elements, special effects), Reupke sets herself apart from it through the systematic utilisation of static shots, the absence of editing and the disruption of the relationship between the figure and the setting.

With Infrastructure (2002), a work in four parts, the artist represents an imaginary transport network all along a valley in the Alps an airport, a railway, a motorway, a port which appear in the centre of the scene while an uninterrupted flow of traffic moves through the space. The main action is presented to the viewers like the flow of actions on Simcity, while at the same time, a group of fleeting, random secondary actions in miniature capture their attention and incite them to scan the frame continuously for these secondary motifs.

As she explained in a 2005 interview: "At the time I made Infrastructure I was fascinated (and still am) with cinematic special effects. Not just the latest developments in CGI but the whole history of the craft going back to the earliest filmmaking - American Civil War naval battles faked in the studio using water tanks and models, for instance (. . .) It was this tension between the visible and invisible that I wanted to explore with Infrastructure. Referencing Alfred Hitchcock, in particular North by Northwest and The Birds (films which today look very painterly), I constructed the images according to the same technical principles used then; a combination of stills photography and live footage assembled using simple mattes. I took what might in conventional cinema be used as an establishing shot, lasting no longer than 3 or 4 seconds (each second a precious chunk of the budget) and leave it on screen for 3 or 4 minutes, giving the viewer an opportunity to really scrutinise and question the image".

Here, different scales of and within the image, the different places, realities and time frames are brought together within the sequences themselves. The static nature of the shots and their length (3 or 4 minutes) transform the viewers gaze into that of an experienced observer invited to discern the many tricks of the image.

Pascale Cassagnau

Translation Miriam Rosen