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disappearing versus revealing The theme of entering and exiting, crossing and going through, because crossing the threshold of a house indicates leaving one space (the space of home) and entering another (the outside world). The condition for the existence of both worlds is expressed in the movement of the drawbridge. Linking the threshold of home. For the viewer it is the threshold between their world and the world of the film, for the film it is the threshold between reality and myth. A threshold always points in two directions because it links and divides things at one and the same time. One can cross the boundary dividing the known space from the unknown. “…images stay awake.” (Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space) |
Viewers find themselves between two poles – between projection and identification (recognition). During the period of the magic lantern in the 1860s phantasmagorical images were projected on screens of smoke. The materialisation of air, of the spirit. A screen conceals and protects (drapery, curtain, cloak) but also opens up and deflects. A semi-permeable membrane that allows some things to pass but prevents others can be a sieve and a filter. We cross a border through drapery and enter another world, the world of myth. |
