Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Rosa Barba
Italian; 21st-century
Chicago, IL: Corbett vs. Dempsey (Exhibition: Rosa Barba: Poised Compression)
70%
One Way Out. 2009. 16mm film, optical sound, projector, ventilator, tube, silencer
Barba has extended the gallery's ventilation system, hiding within her added section of pipe a filmstrip that hangs down below the tubing and runs on continuous loop through a projector on the floor. The image being projected is "blank": it's the plain creamy white of leader, marred by inevitable blots and blemishes. The projection's edges appear to quiver as the air coming through the vents above jostles the physical film. This all speaks to how the effects which any film has on its viewers are involved with the particular environmental conditions of its display — not a very interesting thing to speak to in 2009, decades on from Expanded Cinema's heyday, c1970. Were it not for a few key formal decisions, the experience offered up by One Way Out would be fully reducible to the tired argument it makes. But then why does the segment of pipe Barba's added curve and elbow around like it does? Why is it reaching so far away from the projector? Is the film actually moving through all that ductwork, or are the exaggerations of Barba's HVAC addendum just artistic flourish? This ambiguity has nothing to do with film or phenomenology — it lies far outside of theorizing; it's just funny. Jokesterism separates One Way Out from the seriousness it purports, to its aesthetic benefit. (TFS, 2025)