Man in Space is a 1982 installation made by artist Jonathan Borofsky in collaboration with filmmaker Gary Glassman. It consists of a monitor on a base and a wall painting behind it. The video alternates white drawings on a black ground and black drawings on a white ground. In the centre of the screen, an anthropomorphic figure with a rabbit's head seems to be permanently falling. Its arms and legs, represented by empty volumes, are not connected to its trunk and its body, which is almost like that of a robot, appears fragmented. In the centre of the figure there is a clock with hands which seem to be detached as well.

The sequence is played forwards and then backwards. In this way, Borofsky and Glassman blur the reading of time. The absence of a sound track and the title accentuate the impression of a void.

The figure seems to be weightless, perpetually falling downwards. The different body parts move and separate from one another; a hand reaches out towards the visitor, the perspective of the drawings becomes distorted. At the bottom of the screen there is a counter like the time code used in video editing, but the numbers flashing by do not give any indication of known time. 

For Borofsky, who is best known for his monumental sculptures, numbers have a particular attraction and significance: “For me, numbers are like God. They connect us all together in a way nothing else does. Like magic. You and I are now speaking from different parts of the country about ideas, and we're doing it with through the use of numbers. Each of our pockets or purses carries all sorts of numbers, printed on plastic cards, which allow us to buy things, call people and do something. That led me to an obsession in the last few years with binary numbers that run every computer in the world.”[1]

Borofsky is also interested in our changing perception of the body in the wake of discoveries about atoms and nuclear physics. The hybrid character of the video, half man and half rabbit, represents a variation on a recurrent figure in Borofsky's work, the “Molecule Man” who first appeared in 1977. He turns up in several public commissions, notably the Molecule Man in Berlin's Treptow Park, a monumental aluminium sculpture some 30 metres high which symbolises the combination of molecules prior to the birth of the human being.

The collaboration between Jonathan Borofsky and Gary Glassman ended in 1985 with the video " Prisoners ", which is also part of the Centre Georges Pompidou collection. “In 1985, I co-produced and directed a documentary on prisoners in the United States with Gary Glassman. We interviewed 15 men in San Quentin Prison and 15 women in Chino Prison, in Southern California. From these interviews, we edited 48 hours of tape down to a one hour long documentary. Garyshot the video on Beta-Cam and did most of the editing. I financed the project and did the interviews on camera. We talked to prisoners about their lives -- very personal questions -- 'How does someone like yourself end up in a cementbox like this?' This project is aimed at understanding why people hurt other people.”[2]

Laetitia Rouiller

Translation and adaptation: Miriam Rosen

[1] . Interview with Ann Curran, Carnegie Mellon Magazine, Spring 2002

[2] . Ibid.