Laurel Woodcock

The title is borrowed from an obscure Douglas Sirk film from 1943 — a director noted for his use of melodrama. The title is one of several cinematic conventions that the work uses in unconventional ways. Moments of absurd humor invite the spectator to laugh, even if uncomfortably, at tragicomic or self-conscious circumstances.

lured consists of a cinematic scale video projection (approximately 15’ x 20’) where a female protagonist drops her keys down a sewer grate over and over again. A total of 7 sequences (each slightly different) is rendered in slow motion and framed in close-up. While there are many apparent edits within each of the 7 sequences, they are seamlessly joined together as a bright red straw purse fills the screen at the start and end of each sequence — needlessly mimicking Hitckcock’s 1948 film Rope where he used the technique so the entire film would appear as one continuous shot. A techno/trance soundtrack hypnotically accompanies the absurd repetition of the sequences, with a startling smudge sound effect emphasizing each seemingly seamless edit. The viewer knows they are being played.*

*adapted from a phrase Jan Allen uses in her catalogue essay “Sweet Surrender and Meaning Machines”