Forma Arts

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Studio 102 The Pill Box

115 Coventry Road
London E2 6GG

Media Release
March 2015

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Mythology
A solo exhibition by Mark Boulos featuring Echo,
commissioned and produced by Forma Arts
Preview: 23 April 2015 6PM 8PM
Seminar: 24 April 2015 10AM 1PM
Exhibition: 24 April 31 May 2015
Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Arts (ICIA), The Edge,
University of Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
Echo is a new large-scale video art installation by
Mark Boulos in which the viewer encounters a
real-time 3D video reflection of himself or herself the ghost of an ego; the mirror cracked. The
viewers image will appear to move and talk as they
do but relocated within a documentary urban
landscape, their reflection seems to stand within
the video but also distinct from it and is
experienced as a parallax between the image and
the background; an illusion read by the naked eye
as 3 dimensional.
Echo attempts to induce a feeling of displacement,
alienation and uncanniness. It desynchronizes time
and stretches space so as to undermine the
foundations of perceptual understanding.
Theoretically, it is inspired by neuroscience and
psychoanalysis. Art historically, it refers to selfportraiture as well as classical representations of the
myth of Narcissus and Echo. Technically, the
installation combines the latest video technology
with the 19th-century stage magic illusion
Peppers Ghost.
A scene of financial institutions dwarfs the viewer.
Contrazoom, the camera technique Hitchcock
developed to induce a feeling of vertigo, is used to
create the impression of the buildings receding and
shrinking away from the focal point of the viewer.
Desynchronization and distortion are employed to
affect a feeling of disembodiment and alienation in
the viewer, their reflection registering a delay of a
few moments and their voice heard as an echo.
As the video draws to a close, the rhythm of the
work accelerates to a crisis. The viewer abruptly

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finds himself or herself in sudden quiet; the scene

is empty except for them. The contrazoom
continues until reaching a visual limit, then
accelerates toward the viewer and their reflection
in a claustrophobic crescendo.
Echo was inspired by the work of cognitive
neuroscientist Olaf Blanke; a consultant and
collaborator on the work. In his article Video Ergo
Sum published in Science Magazine, Prof. Blanke
demonstrated that he could use 3D video to
produce an out-of-body experience, as described
by people with neuropathological conditions. At
his lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
in Lausanne, Prof. Blanke investigates and
manipulates how the mind determines where the
body is in space.
Blankes scientific research into the perception of
the body parallels Boulos sculptural and cinematic
concerns, including subjective identification. Prof.
Blankes work reflects a neurological basis for what
Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis have long
insisted: that only upon encountering ones mirror
reflection can a subject recognize oneself as a
single, unified subject. With Echo, Boulos seeks to
subvert that self-recognition, singularity and unity.
During this project, Boulos was an artist-inresidence at the Agalma Foundation in Geneva,
which promotes dialogue between psychoanalysis,
neuroscience and culture.
Echo marks a significant technical and formal
development in Boulos practice from his previous
documentary-style video works. Using multiple
screens to simultaneously fragment and suture

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time and perspective, his earlier documentaries

represented subjectivity in crisis: people who
would sacrifice themselves for their beliefs, either
symbolcally through religious ecstasy or physically
through political violence. Bouloss videos were
investigations into issues of materialism and
politics, phenomenology and psychology.
As part of Mythology at ICIA, Echo will be
presented alongside a new work of Mark Boulos:
Antigone.
Antigone is a three-channel installation filmed in
Los Angeles, in which three actresses preparing for
a monologue from Sophocles Antigone tell three
stories in unison. One speaks candidly from her
own experience as the two on the screens beside
her re-enact her words. The installation muddles
the line between enacted performances and
documentary accounts the documentary
component lying in the fact that each subject is

Image Credit: Mark Boulos, Echo (2013), Still.

being observed as they draw from their training in

the method active techniques of Constantin
Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg. Beyond a catalyst
for poetic ambiguities, Bouloss project also seeks
to plumb Sophocles paragon of classical theatre
and modern critical thought to reveal the
essentially asynchronous quality of subjective
truths.
A programme of related talks, films and events will
accompany the exhibition including the seminar,
Mythology on Friday 24 April.
Forma www.forma.org.uk
ICIA www.icia.org.uk
For further information and images or videos
please contact Penny Sychrava PR
0796 791 5339 or pennysychrava@hotmail.com

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Notes to Editors
Production Credits
Echo running time 4 mins 20 secs
Echo has been commissioned and produced by
Forma.
The Wellcome Trust has funded the development
of the projects presentation at ICIA in Bath in
April 2015. The Mondriaan Fund, Pro Helvitia
and The Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation
have also supported the presentation of Echo at
the ICIA.
Filming supported by City of London Scientific
Collaborator: Prof. Olaf Blanke, EPFL, Lausanne,
Switzerland.
Cinematographer: Bevis Bowden
Animator: Ralph Pinel
Sound Designer: Franco Ross Adams
About Mark Boulos
Mark Boulos (b. 1975, Boston, USA)
Currently lives and works in Geneva, Switzerland
and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Boulos received his
BA in Philosophy from Swarthmore College and
Deep Springs College, USA, his MA from the
National Film and Television School, England,
and held a Fulbright Scholarship at the
Rijksakademie, Amsterdam.
Solo exhibitions include: FACT, Liverpool (2013),
Lisson Gallery, London (2013), MOMA,
New York (2012), Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver,
(2010), AR/GE Kunst Galerie Museum,
Bolzano (2010), and the Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam (2008). Group shows include: the
CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco (2012),
Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2011), New
Frontier at Sundance Film Festival (2011) and the
Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art,
Rotterdam (2010).
Boulos work has also been exhibited at the
Biennale of Moving Images, Geneva (2014), 6th
Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, (2010), the
2nd Biennale of Thessaloniki (2009), the Biennale

of Sydney (2008), the Centre for Contemporary

Arts, Glasgow, the Bloomberg Space, Hayward
Gallery, the Barbican Gallery, and the Institute of
Contemporary Art, London. He has received
awards from the Netherlands Film Fonds, the
Fonds BKVB, Film London, the British
Documentary Film Foundation, and the Arts
Council England.
About Forma
Founded by curator David Metcalfe, Forma began
in 1992 and has since grown to become one of
Europes foremost creative commissioning and
producing agencies working with artists and other
practitioners to develop large-scale experimental
and technologically pioneering exhibitions,
performances, films and public artworks. Forma is
a registered charity, which receives support and
funding for its core activity from Arts Council
England.