Assassin

A video project which explores the seductive spectacle of crime in cinema through the depiction of the archetypal character of the assassin. Assassin creates a new text in which the binding effects of narrative have been dissolved by using a mosaic of film fragments (clips, music, subtitles, dialogue) from French crime thrillers from the 1950s and 60s. It is grounded in research into cinematic grammatology which aims to give rise to a rigorous rethinking of the possibilities of cinema and its role in memory and identity. Maziere forms part of the tradition of artists and filmmakers who work with archive materials, dislocating them from their original purpose and intention, revealing new readings, meanings and questions. Assassin creates a multilayered, intertextual fusion of the cultural and the personal, shifting the emphasis back to the power of individual vision. To the anthropological and social dimension of reworking archive film, Mazière has added the psychological role of the self. The idea for the work was developed from Maziere’s essay The Big Search on the use of found footage in the journal Art In-Sight (Issue 28, summer 2005, ISSN 1460-4051). Assassin was in the exhibition Final Cut, Medienkunst Und Kino – an international survey of the contemporary use of archival footage by visual artists, curated by Hermann Noring and including works by Candice Breitz, Klaus Vom Bruch, Pierre Huyghe, Mark Lewis, Paul McCarthy and Matthias Muller. Exhibited at a dozen key international venues including Images (Toronto), Scanners (New York) as well as venues in France, Germany, Portugal and Serbia. Formed a central part of Maziere’s retrospective screening funded by Film London at the Picture House Cinema in London in May 2007. Citations include Catherine Elwes (2005); David Curtis (2007). Assassin exists in two versions: a 3 channel video projection for gallery installation and a single channel version for screenings