Akeroyd Collection

Works

Charles Atlas, A Prune Twin, 2020

A Prune Twin is an immersive nine-channel installation of sound and moving image. The film installation follows choreographer and dancer Michael Clark through his life and work via archival footage, and in its staging extends the idea of choreography to the camera and sound. Originally commissioned as the centrepiece of a major exhibition at the Barbican in London titled Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer, the footage flows across and throughout screens and monitors offering an intimate portrait of Clark through the 1980s. By privileging content and form equally, in so much as the material is itself choreographed into a new and compelling dance all of its own, Atlas offers a sensory portrait of Clark that demands the visitor moves with the work. The installation utilizes past film footage taken during an earlier set of collaborations between Clark and Atlas, namely Hail the New Puritan in 1986, that presented a highly stylized and fictionalized version of a typical day in Clark’s life and a Channel 4 production, Because We Must (1989), which was full of extreme theatricality in its dance, choreography, scenery, costumes, and directorial position. A Prune Twin takes footage from both and further elaborates Atlas’s appetite for collaboration with exceptionally creative collaborators and demonstrates his sensitivity to movement and how to capture it on film. A Prune Twin surrounds the viewer in a beautifully choreographed, almost immersive experience that captures the energy and love that has been held in this 35-year collaborative relationship.

MediumNine-channel video installation with four monitors, with sound Dimensions variable
Duration20 minutes
Editionof 3 + 2 APs