Sandra Peters

The video present, presentation, a presentation is made up of two cycles of images, opening with a series of twenty-eight photographs of featherwork made by Indigenous peoples of South America. The viewer first sees a feathered artifact in isolation; the subsequent picture is projected on top of the one already on the screen, resulting in a superimposition of two views. The first picture then gradually fades so that only the second one remains, after which the next superimposition ensues. A brief pause intervenes before the second sequence begins, which features shots of the Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier. The technical arrangement of the image sequencing is the same as in the first segment.

The images of featherwork artfully isolated against a black ground are taken from the catalogue accompanying a 1994–95 exhibition at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne, and the night-time photographs of the ever-changing light installation of the Ferris wheel were taken by the artist herself. Despite the divergent aesthetic auras and historical trajectories of these motifs, in both cases the superimpositions generate images that are not related to an experience or reality outside the presentation itself. While the structure of the video—notwithstanding the pause in its middle—emphasizes similarities of form and (re-)presentation, the viewer is invited to consider the irreconcilable difference of the two sets of images.

Credits for the featherworks belong to the following Indigenous peoples:
Araweté, Bororo, Erikbaktsa, Irantse, Juruna, Kaiapó, Karajá, Nambiquara, Suruí, Tapirapé, Wayana-Aparai, Wayãpi (Brazil); Jívaro, Shuar (Ecuador); Yanonami (Venezuela).