2004
The Kind and Quality of the Whole is a dual strand experimental 16mm film, projected side by side, that presses against early motion studies and the taxonomic grid through reenactment to explore how bodies are visualized, classified, and controlled. Across two adjacent strips, the film focuses on the disabled and non-normative figure as a subject of scrutiny—posed for analysis, pathologized through medical imaging, or displayed as spectacle. Mirroring, splitting, and slipping out of sync, the two strands open an alchemical space where bodies shimmer between presence and performance, between subject and object. Shot on color negative and high-contrast black and white film, processed between a defunct Midtown Manhattan film lab and hand development in a bathroom sink, the work oscillates between industrial and intimate modes of image making. Movement is captured in discrete frames, inscribing form through posed repetitions, recalling figural arrangements that position bodies for study, comparison, correction, and display. Contact printing and the reproduction of frames produce doubling and delay, foregrounding a tension between deviation and the drive toward correction.