Lost in the Translation

1984, 8:35 min, color, sound

In this elusive exploration of identity, marginalization and difference, Labat constructs a nonlinear narrative from fragmented images and sounds that have been decontextualized and thus "lose something in the translation." Layering the fictive and the real, he stages scenes — including an artist's model imitating the pose of Ingres' Odalisque — and repeats words and images to confound meaning. In an ironic play on anonymity, black strips are placed on television "talking heads" to conceal the subjects' identities. Through associative imagery and ruptured narratives, Labat creates a collage of disorientation and otherness, replicating the mediated experience of "a bad joke told in a foreign language."

Sound: Scott Reyser. With: Mike Osterhout, Julie Yokum, Anastasia Hagerstrom, Flamo Le Grande, Carla Woods, Tony Labat.