Extremities (1978).

Langton Street Studio, May 1978

Performance with spectator interaction and video surveillance.

Performance installation with surveillance video of audience behaviour relayed to performer in central “box”. The head of a figure [Scott] is present in a sloping tunnel with a video monitor towards the rear of it. The figure scanned the monitor in rear-vision mirrors and notated the audience's choices onto paper which was presented via a video camera to a monitor above the front door of the space.1

In "Extremities" (1978) the audience was videotaped as they made decisions, whether to move to the left or right of a large wall etc. I recorded this information from a monitor behind the wall by drawing on large sheets of vellum and then presented it back to the audience via video. It took them a while to realize that they were effectively, my "source of inspiration" [Scott]2

Photos: Jock Reynolds

Sponsored by: Video International and The San Francisco State University.

Included in Video Free America Presents: Videos by Jill Scott (1978)

1Scott, Characters of Motion, 1980, pp.32-35.

2Joanne Kelly, Video Free America Presents, http://www.vasulka.org/archive/ExhFest6/VidFreeAm/VFApresents.pdf p.70