SPILL (1999)

Graham Gussin

16mm black and white silent film

Classification:

Moving Image

Materials:

Digital video, 16mm film

Dimensions:

12 minutes

Credit:

Purchased through the Contemporary Art Society Special Collection Scheme with Lottery funding from Arts Council England, 2000

Scheme:

Special Collection Scheme (1997-2004): Fine Art

Ownership history:

Purchased from the artist by the Contemporary Art Society through its Special Collections Scheme, with the aid of Arts Council Lottery funding, 26 May 2000; presented to Southampton City Art Gallery, 2000

Relationship:

Southampton City Art Gallery

Spill uses a cinematic device, or effect, in order to deal with notions of threshold, appearance and threat. It situates itself in a tradition of painting in the way it uses fog to evoke a feeling of the uncanny or the sublime, inspired by Caspar David Friedrich, for example, and it also referencing horror and science fiction films of the 1950’s as well as contemporary commercial music videos. Fog and mist were, and still are, used in Hollywood productions to designate a shift in aspect – a movement from the natural to the supernatural. Spill 1999, which traces the spilling of dry ice through an abandoned building, has a counterpart in Spill 2006.

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