Janet Cardiff / George Bures Miller
Night Canoeing, 2004

Artist
Janet Cardiff / George Bures Miller

Title
Night Canoeing

Year of creation
2004

Technology and duration
video installation, length: 18 minutes, loop

Year of acquisition
2005

The DVD sound installation "Night Canoeing" takes the viewer on a canoe trip through a nighttime body of water in Canada. You can hear the dip of the oar, sometimes indistinct voices, and you can only see what is illuminated by the fishing lamp, bank embankments, fog, whirlpools and water vegetation. It is an almost scenic, claustrophobic film that turns the viewer into an intruder and participant in the excursion, but who cannot grasp the secret. The viewer goes along with excitement on the journey without finding out where the journey ends and what surroundings they are in. Your own fears of murky waters, darkness, indistinct noises, without solid ground under your feet, can be experienced very subtly. The eeriness of the situation holds the viewer completely captive for 18 long minutes and leaves them with their own images of the unconscious in their heads.

Britta Schmitz