The iconic western standoff is a wholly cinematic invention, and its tense juxtaposition of character and action, gaze and gun, is etched into American mythology. The climactic three-way duel of Sergio Leone's 1967 spaghetti western masterpiece The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is both an innovation and an apotheosis of the form, using a barrage of closeups, cutaways, and musical scoring to draw the fates of three archetypal characters toward a singular end.
LOOK/KILL examines the impossible pre-violent moment of anticipation by stretching it into an absurdity. The film's careful montage is dismantled, separated into three distinct channels, and expanded into a durational and immersive installation, a living stasis which never repeats and never resolves.
A version of this installation was first presented as part of CATCH 57 in Brooklyn, NY.
