Vanishing Point
With its title taken from Richard Sarafian's 1971 road movie, Janet Biggs' video Vanishing Point combines two scenarios that are very different in visual language: After a serious motorcycle accident on the Bonneville salt flats in 2007, Leslie Porterfield returned to motor sports one year later and broke three world records, one of which was a land-speed record of 234 mph. Biggs recorded footage both of the racing motorcyclist and the sporting event. Because of the snow white, smooth desert sand and the clear blue horizon of the salt flats, the eye has no reference points and the profile shots of Porterfield and her motorcycle transform the full-throttle, dangerous attempt into an apparent statical moment.
The other scene shows a song that Biggs composed, performed by the ARC gospel choir, an initiative of the Harlem’s Addicts Rehabilitation Center. In her text, Biggs deals with questions of identity and wants to know: »When are we no longer ourselves?« Isolation and self-loss, made visible by deep intrusions into our lives, represent the background that Biggs uses as the opportunity to deal with the question of how the limits of our identity are laid down and when our essence – what makes us who we are – eventually vanishes. (Maria Wildeis)
About the video
About the artist
- 1959 in New York, USA.
Studied at Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA, and at Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, USA
