Gallery VER

I pushed one side of the door to let myself in. Before I entered I had no idea about the darkness, the glass window from the outside reflected nothing from the inside. The only reflection I saw is of myself. I could barely see a thing, but I still knew it was a dark room as I passed through. Without entering would I have thought of a room as a mere concept, a concept to enter much like the space itself. I stay for a few minutes longer just to acclimate my eyes. Then I see the slices of light reflected on the floor, the wall and the ceiling. I think, perhaps, if there is no reflection of the light, there will be a room no longer either.

Four walls, a ceiling and a floor and really nothing else. According to the sun, the wall from my right hand side reveals its clearest texture, a very dull black wall painted with the cheapest wall colour with a strong chemical odour. The black wall on the opposite of my gaze appears only in small segments, a darker grey tone it seems, and the wall on the left is what the eyes neglect, it is there to justify the perspective. The ceiling is revealed only in the perception that there is no light from above, a function of a roof. And last, the floor that the eyes cannot actually see but feel. The floor invited the body to stay and observe. It insisted the body as the subject of the room.

Int. A room in a black box, is a self dissection, an autopsy of the double body of the Subject. Of one which is represented and one that bears the unconscious responsibility which makes the representation. In a film there are always two subjects touched by light, one which makes legible the distanced Subject and one which is reflected in the eye of the other. It is an interplay of gazes, that of the maker and that of the spectator turned witness. They have become witnesses in so far that to commit to an act of seeing, is a compromise on one’s body. There is a thin line that separates seeing and making. There is no going outside of the room anymore, the set never finishes and the solid ground never starts.

I stand there waiting for the film to be complete as the sitter is waiting for his portrait.

Namfon Udomlertlak completed her Master’s degree in research and film studies from the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam. She teaches a moving image class at Chiang May University on and off. Living and working in Bangkok, her most recent work addresses the blurriness of truth, the flip side of time in moving images, and the compromised witness of narratives.

Some of her group shows include Speedy Grandma Centennial at Speedy Grandma recently in 2020, To Whom It May Concern, Bangkok City City Gallery ( 2017) and screened her film at the Eye Film Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2015).

Text by Supannee Sa-nguanpong

And Pongsakorn Yananissorn