Joe Maller: Empty

Empty

1997 - 8:11

320x240, 8.1 Mb
(±20 minutes @ 56k)
Requires Quicktime 4 (free)

Click to watch Empty...

About Empty

Empty was completed in 1997 while working to reclaim the space that would become 581. This was a particularly busy period of my life, and the exhaustion I was feeling, both emotional and physical, definitely worked its way into this.

Reactions to Empty are quite varied. Some people laugh, some tell me I'm sick, some blush. Men and women seem to have completely different interpretations — men tend to get more bothered by it.

Originally I figured this piece would be quiet, sitting in a corner or on a wall much like a painting, running but not crying out for attention. This was conceived as a background piece, never intended for a theatrical sort of exhibition.

The lotion was a new 22.4 oz (662 mL) bottle of Vaseline Intensive Care hand lotion. This was shot in one take on single-chip Hi8 with a shotgun boom mic. Editing was deck-to-deck.

Exhibitions

1998 - a box is a form part of Notes on Moving Images, Brooklyn New York

1997 - 581 Psuedo-Guerilla exhibition, New York City