Catalogue > At random

The silent, ultra-short black-and-white video IN [ TO is shorter than a video clip: it clocks in at 2 minutes, 47 seconds. It was made with material shot exclusively for the film, plus footage filmed `on the occasion`, while Downsbrough was working on other projects. One sees images from (South) Chicago, Brussels and Kent respectively, but since everything is filmed at night, only viewers who are familiar with the location will easily identify the spots. Here, the purpose is not to be specific about a site, to identify a place, or to document a certain location. Rather, Downsbrough gives an overall feeling of some quasi-archetypical `city at night`. The city is shot both as cityscape, from a distance, e.g. from outside the window of a Brussels apartment private building, or from nearer-by: a zoom-in from inside of the same building. IN [ TO contains many elements that define former Downsbrough films, both content-wise ? urbanism, cars, freeways and ring roads ? and formally: clean, `structural` framing, abstraction, the use of graphically inserted words. Here, as before, a phrase or a word game, almost hidden, can be discerned ? it might or might not be a key to the film. First, there?s the title of course, IN [ TO. Only at the very end, when the image is fading, the word TIME lights up, shortly. It seems like an indication of what time does: fading out light. Into time, the light fades out. A stream of cars passes by, only their head lights are visible. Everything else is dark, except for the horizon, with the outlines of distant buildings and hundreds of lights flickering: lit windows, neon publicity, street lights. At the film`s very end, a point of view shot from inside a car shows a road at night: Kent ? but it might be any city, or in between cities. To the left, trees; to the right, light posts; in front, the beam of the headlights, some other cars` rear lights. Then the image fades. TIME. The image`s gone. IN ] TO, with reversed bracket. Credits. - Steven Tallon -

Peter Downsbrough (1940, New Brunswick, N.J.; lives in Brussels) initially studied architecture but decided early on to work as a sculptor. Taking photographs of his trademark Two Pipes lead to taking photographs of ?cuts? that already existed in the urban landscape. Initially used in his books, they were shown in exhibitions from 1980 on. After having realized a few videos around 1978, Downsbrough took up filming again when he got a digital camera in 2002. In 1980, on the Spectacolor Board on Times Square, New York, he realized a 30-second spot shown once every hour for four days, and documented it in a short film, ?7 come 11.? His ongoing research of time, space and structure is further articulated through lines and letters in maquettes, wall and room pieces, and public commissions. Exhibitions include POSITION, 2003, curated by M.-T. Champesme, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (B), Espace de l?Art Concret, Mouans-Sartoux (F) and Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz (PL); Mamco, Genève (CH); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon (F); SMAK, Ghent (B) and PETER DOWNSBROUGH: THE BOOK(S), curated by M. Küng, deSingel, Antwerp (B) which will have a second venue at Fabra i Coats, Barcelona (E) in the beginning of 2013.