Chronometer

2006, 24:24 min, color, sound

Jacobs' first 'Nervous Magic Lantern' performance (1990) paired with a soundtrack by Harrison Birtwistle (1971).

Ken Jacobs writes: "Magic Lantern performance (a work for one projector) recorded to video. Mesh of clockwork sounds by Harrison Birtwistle. 'The movie projector's a kind of clock', the artist Ed Bachelor said. Somewhere inside the machine beats a Piranesi space, shaped and given dimension by a string of exposures of a seated woman undulating gravity-free. Who is this alluring lady of this filmstrip-tease? I call her Dinah, because the name contains a d, an n, and an a. Dinah Ovum! She is waiting, she is confident, she is radioing for help. Her message: 'Let us gestate, love.'"

Music Composition: Harrison Birtswstle, 1971. Tape realized by Peter Zinovieff. Nervous Magic Lantern Performance by Ken Jacobs, 1990.