Enclosure

1973, 7:28 min, b&w, sound

A hand-held video camera restlessly scans Benglis' studio, moving back and forth between three primary subjects: two television sets and a man reclining on a couch with a cat. One of the televisions displays close ups of the man and cat, the other a hockey game. The configuration suggests an analysis of the typical television-viewer dynamic. The sound of the television sets is either off or very low, so that the ambient sounds of the room dominate, heightening the sense of an enclosed space, walled in by the camera's movements and ultimately by the implied third television: the monitor on which the viewer is watching Benglis' video.