Transposition

Tina Keane, a pioneer in the use of electronic media in the visual arts, first conceived Transposition as a performance for the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna in 1992. Exploring the concept of using the human body as a screen, Keane projected video images on to the naked backs of men as they glide sideways standing on a travelator. Following this performance, and in keeping with an enduring theme of Tina Keane’s output to rework a concept across a spectrum of formats, Keane re-edited the piece to make a double screen video installation. Capturing rushes of landscapes, at times reduced to abstract light and colour, the movement of freight trains, rats crawling over piles of rubbish, and a hazy audio track with voices, electronic beeps and chords, Keane’s Transposition forms an abstract montage of movement, light and decay.