Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

The video installation A crime must be committed is the second part of a series of three parts, focusing on the historical development of the way characters are por-tray¬ed in European and North American movie and TV history. In A crime must be committed Tess cites and alters typical scenes of the crime and detective film genre, such as 1920s gangster movies, (Underworld, 1927), Film Noir (The Maltese Falcon, 1941) Neo-Noir Films, (The Detective, 1968), thrillers, (Die Hard, 1988; Shaft, 1971 and 2000), and contemporary investigation series (CSI, from 2000). The artist follows the historical development of the detective character and his relationship to the criminal, as well as the power games between the pro¬ta¬go-nists, that change over time. The video refuses to follow a chronological order that normally structures historiography. And the tension, as well as the case, of the criminal film remain unresolved, while the loop leaves beginning and end undefined.

Rebecca Ann Tess is an artist born in 1980 in Annweiler Am Trifels, Germany. She studied fine arts at the University of Fine Arts of Berlin, at the Chelsea College of art & Design, and at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. She works essentially with video and found footages and her research approaches diverse subjects such as queer theory or television history. Her work was shown in several European exhibitions.