Magnesium Light is a video project investigating the events surrounding the Abu Ghraib photographs of 2006.

You and I

Viewers enter a darkened space showing images tracking over bodyscape fragments of the same male figure seen in the etching as a female figure touches this body with sexual caress. It appears to be a passionate love scene in the days leading up to the etching scene. The female voice-over, with its American accent, along with fragments of a uniform, subtly complicate this by suggesting it is the memory of a female soldier based somewhere in Iraq, as she sexually provokes a prisoner.

Hold Me

At the centre of the previous installation is a hollow black monolith. Looking down into its core, viewers see the previous scenes, but from the point of view of the man. The man’s voice-over can be heard through headphones. We watch and listen as he recalls his wife, and attempts to bury himself in memory.

Project DirectorDennis Del Favero
Project Funding: Australia Council for the Arts

2009-2012

Two Channel DVD Video. 4 minutes. BW. Stereo.

Part 1: You and I

Part 2: Hold Me

 

  • John Curtin Gallery, Perth, 2012
  • University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, 2011
  • Galerie Marion Scharmann, Cologne, 2009
  • Works on Paper, Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney, 2009

Producer, Director and Designer: Dennis Del Favero

Writer: Stephen Sewell

Composer: Kate Moore

Sound Designers: Tony MacGregor and Dennis Del Favero

Sound Engineer: Mark Don

Stylist and Designer: Karla Urizar

Voice-overs: Man: Josef Ber; Woman: Jennifer Vuletic

Actors: Man: Andrew Dalton; Woman: Joanne Cunningham

Produced by the iCinema, Centre for Interactive Cinema Research,

University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Co-Produced in association with Radio Eye, ABC Radio National.

Assisted by the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney.