The Xerces Society, Installment VII:
From London to Marrakech
Single channel video
Running time: 11:15 (excerpt)
2007

As Sir Cropia enters into his seventh decade, he oscillates between manic aspirations for a diminishing future and melancholic reflections on a vexed and variable past. Consequently, the moving images that constitute Installment VII, visible through apertures that are at once windows and eyes, form a compelling analogue for Sir Cropia's own psychological state. Placing the spectator in Sir Cropia's restless shoes, the spectator does see, but only at the mercy of Sir Cropia's mind's eye. Thus, just as a tension exists within Sir Cropia's self-assessment, so for the spectator a comparable tension develops between his/her point of view and that of our nefarious protagonist. As such, the romance of travel by train, as suggested by the parade of level images on the windows' far side, quickly gives way to the realization that one has been kidnapped -- perhaps by Sir Cropia's own hand.