AREA STUDIES The Hotel Room Oracles SIGHTED POLAR VIDEOS 2005 VIDEOS 2006 FLIGHT TOP
Real Estate Domesticity Curtailment
Why Reality is a Mask
  • Why Reality is a Mask, 2022 [excerpt] read more …
    8:52 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Full version: http://reality.miabailey.net Three figures change masks and costumes, enacting repetitive dance sequences to a soundtrack of hip hop beats and a recurring Paganini sample. Video in dialogue with theories about the unreliability of perception put forth by neurologist Donald Hoffman in his book “The Case Against Reality.” Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Dancers/choreography: Claudia Teichmann, Maximilian Münch, Marie Gerhardine Iguchi
Why Reality is a Mask Screening Dehydration MIA BAILEY
Screening
  • Screening, 2022 read more …
    10:53 min, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. Two figures wearing masks in the shape of eyeballs are immobilised in tubes. Their movements are reduced to the swaying back and forth of the two giant eyes, giving them the appearance of a single, seeing organism. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Dancers: Maximilian Münch, Anne Champan
imprint
Aquarium
  • Aquarium, 2022 read more …
    Video group Dehydration, 2022, 1:18 min, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. An inflatable shark moves slowly through a forest at night. Video from the series Dehydration, which examines our relationship to the ocean as a metaphor for the unconscious mind. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Actor: Jens Winterhalter
Longing
  • Longing, 2022 read more …
    Video group Dehydration, 2022, 1:22 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A diver demonstrates deep-sea diving without water. Video from the series Dehydration, which examines the ocean as a metaphor for the unconscious mind. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Actor: Annette Grimm
BAIT
  • Bait, 2022 read more …
    Video group Dehydration, 2022, 5:29 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Fishing bait and hooks descend and ascend at the front of the frame, whilst two singers and three dancers in protective suits and Lucha libre masks enact a Bach mashup. Video from the series Dehydration, which examines our relationship to the ocean as a metaphor for the unconscious mind. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Singers: Marie Gerhardine Iguchi, Coraghessan Steinbach Dancers/choreography: Claudia Teichmann, Maximilian Münch, Andreas Traupe
Hostage
  • Hostage, 2022 read more …
    Video group Dehydration, 2022, 4:07 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A breakdancer dances in an octopus costume. Video from the series Dehydration, which examines the ocean as a metaphor for the unconscious mind. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Dancer: Georg Helzer
New Life
  • New Life, 2022 read more …
    Video group Dehydration, 2022, 2:47 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A singer wearing a fish mask sings Nina Simone’s “New Life” in front of a round fish bowl containing water but no fish, repeating “Fish in the sea, you know what I mean,” over and over. Video from the series Dehydration, which examines the ocean as a metaphor for the unconscious mind. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Singer: Marie Gerhardine Iguchi
Domesticity
  • Domesticity, 2021 read more …
    Video group Failure, 2021, 2:37 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound Two figures in cockroach costumes enact an intimate dance. The video is part of the series "Failure", which explores the concept in its different dimensions. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou
Curtailment
  • Curtailment, 2021 read more …
    Video group Failure, 2021, 5:13 min, HDV 16:9, color A long-haired man and a long-haired woman take turns to cut each other’s hair shorter and shorter. The video is part of the series Failure, which explores the concept in its different dimensions. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou
Real Estate
  • Real Estate, 2021 read more …
    Video group Failure, 2021, 3:25 min, HDV 16:9, color, sound A figure in an inflatable dinosaur costume builds himself a far too small shelter out of a large piece of cardboard. The video is part of the series Failure, which explores the concept in its different dimensions. Concept and direction: Mia Bailey Camera: Bruno Chansou Actor: Peter Eisemann
The Hotel Room Oracles | 2015/ongoing
  • The Hotel Room Oracles, 2015, film trailer read more …
    The Hotel Room Oracles, 2015, 22:22 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. An actor checks in to the Delphi Hotel to rehearse Doctor Faustus, playing both the devil and Faustus himself. Exploring the hotel, he witnesses increasingly bizarre scenes: in the dining room a woman blinded by the eyes pasted on her closed eyelids sings as the sequins fall from her dress; the hotel cook wears the inscription of the oracle of Delphi tattooed on his arm, and the receptionist and staff re-enact the 3000-year-old ritual of the Oracle of Delphi in the hotel’s basement laundry. As Faustus’ questions become his own, the hotel becomes the theatre of the actor’s undoing. Written, directed and edited by Mia Bailey Produced by Zugabe GmbH Zürich Generously funded by the Fachausschuss Audiovision und Multimedia Basel and the Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung Switzerland. Crew: Cinematography and Sound Engineering: Bruno Chansou Original Music: Basem Darwisch Art Objects: Manuel Frattini Hair and Makeup: Dana Bieler Set Assistance: Wenzel Seibert Actors: Peter Jecklin as The Actor Isabelle Erhart as The Receptionist and Oracle James Loks-Thompson as The Cook Denise Seyhan as The Singer Basem Darwisch as The Musician Heartfelt Thanks: To Gabi Zwecker and the Hotel Markgräfler Hof, Karlsruhe, our filming location. To the company Marcus Sommer SOMSO Modelle GmbH for the loan of the anatomical models.
  • The Hotel Room Oracles, 2018 read more …
    The Hotel Room Oracles is an ongoing project that explores the interaction between video, still image and text; between what we know about an image, and what the image itself shows us. The series of still images and texts from 2018 utilize and expand upon the film fragments from 2015, that themselves claim to be excerpts from a longer, lost film.
  • The Hotel Room Oracles, 2015 read more …
    Excerpt from the film The Hotel Room Oracles, 2015, 22:22 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. The actor returns to the empty dining room to question the hotel cook on his strange tattoo.
  • The Hotel Room Oracles, 2015 read more …
    Excerpt from the film The Hotel Room Oracles, 2015, 22:22 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. In the Delphi Hotel, the actor rehearses his lines: here Doctor Faustus seals his pact with the devil.
AREA STUDIES | 2010
  • Ending/Sorrow, 2010 read more …
    Video group Area Studies, 2010, 8:56 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Collaboration with Manuel Frattini. A man weeps against a backdrop of colored paper toys. Concept, Direction, Editing: Mia Bailey Concept, Backdrop: Manuel Frattini Camera: Bruno Chansou Actor: Pierre-Loic Montfroy
  • Ending/Wheel, 2010 read more …
    Video group Area Studies, 2010, 4:25 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Collaboration with Manuel Frattini. A wheel of collaged paper turns faster and faster until its colors fade to white. Concept, Direction, Editing: Mia Bailey Concept, Object: Manuel Frattini Camera: Bruno Chansou
  • Germany, 2010 read more …
    Video group Area Studies, 2010, 9:07 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Collaboration with Manuel Frattini. Two men sit opposite each other, reciting lists. One is a list of products available in German supermarkets, the other a list of translated German philosophical terms from an English Hegel glossary. Concept, Direction, Editing: Mia Bailey Concept: Manuel Frattini Camera: Bruno Chansou Actors: Manuel Frattini, Marty Hiatt
  • Uncovering, 2010 read more …
    Video group Area Studies, 2010, 9:10 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Collaboration with Manuel Frattini. A woman’s voice speaks of apocalyptic events in an unknown location. The close up of a spinning paper wheel shows that its center remains in focus even when the rest of the disc blurs. Concept, Direction, Text, Editing: Mia Bailey Concept, Object: Manuel Frattini Camera: Bruno Chansou Voice: Mia Bailey
SIGHTED | 2009
  • Attic, 2009 read more …
    Video group Sighted, 2009, 11:14 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. The legs of a woman wearing red stockings are seen as she sorts assorted colored papers scattered upon the floor, moving the papers from one place to the next to create different fields of flat color. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Kendra Walsh
  • Colorblind, 2009 read more …
    Video group Sighted, 2009, 7:01 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A man whose face is partially colored as we view him through red glass, and whose eyes are obscured by a band of blue, tells of a woman he once knew, whom he discovered was colorblind. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Peter Jecklin
  • Darkroom, 2009 read more …
    Video group Sighted, 2009, 8:08 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A man walks back and forth, distorted for the viewer by a concave lens in front of the camera. He explains the double meaning of the word darkroom: a place to develop photographs, and a back room used for anonymous sexual encounters. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Peter Jecklin
  • Poco de las, 2009 read more …
    Video group Sighted, 2009, 4:00 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Three musicians, veiled in red burkas without eyeholes, leaving them without sight, intone the traditional Spanish-Sephardic marriage song, with the refrain “Poco le das”, meaning, “You Give too Little.” Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Musicians: Vox Suavis (Ana Arnaz, Baptiste Romain, Tobie Miller)
  • Circling, 2009 read more …
    Video group Sighted, 2009, 6:13 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A man whose eyes are held shut by a pair of hands with red-polished nails tells about a woman he once knew who turned a block of flats into a lighthouse. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Peter Jecklin
POLAR | 2008
  • Transfusion, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 22:40 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Two figures in balaclavas fill syringes with blood-red liquid from the plastic reservoirs that line the wall behind them. They inject themselves, and a third masked figure who sits between them, singing Count Orlofsky’s aria from Strauss’ opera Die Fledermaus. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Mezzosoprano: Denise Seyhan Actors: Valentin Hennig, Oleg Schatjajew,
  • Breathing, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 3:20 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Against a red and blue background, two plastic bags in the guise of lungs inflate and deflate at regular intervals. Between them, a metronome keeps time. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Assistance: Christian Kurth
  • Dissidence, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 36:22 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. Figures in bird masks enact a choreography of power change. Blue-robed birds are joined by a blue-robed king. They are gradually replaced by yellow-clad birds who usher in a red-robed king. They in turn are replaced by the blue birds with the blue-robed king, etc. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: Samantha Bohatsch, Wolfgang Rempfer, Jeanne Sapel, Hanna Thaler, Matthias Ullrich.
  • Eclipse, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 3:39 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. A light bulb in the aureole of a white lampshade stands against a red background. Slowly, a black object moves into the frame and past the light bulb, momentarily obscuring the light and creating an image reminiscent of a solar eclipse. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey
  • Hatchling, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 12:30 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Two opera singers wearing yellow balaclavas repeatedly sing the first bars of Papageno’s duet from Mozart’s Magic Flute. To their left, a similar figure repeatedly spits out eggs into a gloved hand, on their right a hand slowly deposits eggs into the frame. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Mezzosoprano: Denise Seyhan, Baritone: Philipp Schädel Actor: Heloise Herz
  • Birdteeth, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 9:57 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A pair of hands in white latex gloves pierce an egg with a needle and take its shell apart with tweezers, only to find that it has no content. Each new egg that is dissected is revealed as empty. The eggshells pile up at the front of the frame. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey
  • Capture, 2008 read more …
    Video group Polar, 2008, 4:31 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. A choir’s members are divided into singers wearing blue, and singers wearing pink full–body protection suits. They sing the chorus of the Hebrews from Verdi’s opera Nabucco, where captured prisoners dream of returning to their homeland. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Choir: CoroPiccolo directed by Christian-Markus Raiser Piano: Cornelia Gegenbach Assistance: Oleg Schatjajew
FLIGHT | 2007
  • Waiting for the Enemy, 2007 read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 19:52 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. Five men wearing gas masks and white protective clothing huddle together in a cramped space The frame is divided by a wall, around which the men gather, alternating from one side to the other. They wait and listen for something which never appears. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: Adrian Florea, Oleg Schatjajew, Thomas Schlereth, Kay Treysse, Matthias Ullrich
  • Girly, 2007 (monitor 1) read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 13:01 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. A group of five women, completely veiled in traditional burkas, gather against a green backdrop. The women exit the frame one at a time, only to re-enter shortly again; those remaining group and regroup accordingly. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: Christine Hitzblech, Tereza Kuf, Katia Rendler, Jeanne Sapel, Suzanne Warscheid
  • Girly, 2007 (monitor 2) read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 14:04 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. Five pairs of hands in colorful washing-up gloves lubricate motorized toy airplanes with a glutinous, creamy substance. The planes are then repeatedly inserted into purple latex openings in the grey background surface. The sound is provided by the motorized propellers of the toy airplanes. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: Christine Hitzblech, Tereza Kuf, Katia Rendler, Jeanne Sapel, Suzanne Warscheid
  • Saline, 2007 (monitor 1) read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 9:38 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. A mummified body lies on a background of geometric color planes. Two pairs of white gloved hands appear in the picture, and pack the body in coarse salt. Gradually, the cotton bands of the mummified body are rendered invisible by an increasing mass of salt. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: Wolfgang Rempfer, Jeanne Sapel. Matthias Ullrich
  • Saline, 2007 (monitor 2) read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 9:42 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, sound. On a backdrop of horizontal color planes, tin wind-up pecking birds are placed on the surface by a white gloved hand. Each bird is wound up only once, pecks for a short time, then stops. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Wolfgang Rempfer
  • Mobile, 2007 (monitor 1) read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 11:37 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. A blue budgerigar in a white birdcage on wheels is pulled from one side of the frame to the other by straps attached to either side of the cage. The movement ranges from slow to dangerously rough. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey
  • Mobile, 2007 (monitor 2) read more …
    Video group Flight, 2007, 6:34 minutes, HDV 16:9, color, no sound. In close-up against a blue background, a pair of hands in white latex gloves carefully wrap a dead blue budgerigar in a transparent plastic film. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Jeanne Sapel.
VIDEOS 2006
  • Hidden, 2006 read more …
    23:42 min, DV 4:3, color, sound. A documentary video in which German art students speak about what they imagine might occur at the moment of death. Those interviewed are filmed lying down, in profile, recalling the position of corpses laid out in a morgue. Each segment of a person speaking alternates with an image of their hands upon their chests, and the visible motion of their breathing. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey With (in order of appearance): Sanne Pawelzyk, Lukas Baden, Antoanetta Marinov, Elisabeth Roth, David Heitz, Veronica Rettich, Johannes Hartmann, Verena Klary, Ralf Wirz, Sebastian Baden, Doro Amend, Tim Ernst, Lisa Kränzler.
  • Beneath, 2006 (monitor 1) read more …
    5:00 min, DV 4:3, color, sound. Two pairs of hands, male and female, entirely bound in masking tape, tear this artificial skin off one another. As layer upon layer of tape are removed, parts of the human skin beneath gradually become visible. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: Bruno Chansou, Joelle Seychaud
  • Beneath, 2006 (monitor 2) read more …
    5:00 min, DV 4:3, color, sound. The faces of the man and woman from monitor 1 are covered almost beyond recognition with masking tape, and are seen from above. The movement of their repeated attempts at intimacy pushes together an increasing mass of tape, beneath which their facial features are lost. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Bruno Chansou, Joelle Seychaud
  • Seeing, 2006 read more …
    5:40 min, DV 4:3, color, no sound. The artist, with pupils rendered invisible by white lenses, responds in slow motion to an interlocutor whom we do not see. The video runs soundlessly and the content of the conversation remains unknown to the viewer. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Mia Bailey
VIDEOS 2005
  • Cutting Lilies/Repairing Lilies, 2005 (monitor 1) read more …
    52:00 min, DV 4:3, color, no sound. A man whose right index and middle fingers are severed at the knuckle is holding a razor blade between his thumb and remaining fingers, and cutting open budding lilies. Once he has dissected the flowers, he lays out the flower parts to his left: pollen stems, pistils, large white petals, smaller scarlet petals, all in orderly rows. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Hasso Giesebrecht
  • Cutting Lilies/Repairing Lilies, 2005 (monitor 2) read more …
    19:00 min, DV 4:3, color, no sound. A man with unscarred hands sits at a table facing the pile of dissected lilies left by his predecessor on monitor 1.Working hurriedly, the man uses yellow masking tape to reassemble petals and pollen stems from the pile into makeshift flowers. The carefully aligned botanical parts are scattered in the course of his work, and the petals fall from his hands as he attempts to reaffix them. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: Frowin Keller
  • Circulation, 2005 (monitor 1) read more …
    25:00 min, DV 4:3, color, no sound. A woman presses white liquid from the makeshift udders sewn into her red dress. The “milk” brought into circulation by her pumping gradually fills the assortment of drinking glasses on the table before her. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: anonymous
  • Circulation, 2005 (monitor 2) read more …
    23:00 min, DV 4:3, color, no sound. A man “milks” the latex gloves filled with white fluid sewn into his dinner suit. The liquid brought into circulation by his pressing gradually fills the assortment of drinking glasses on the table before him. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actor: anonymous
  • Circulation, 2005 (monitor 3) read more …
    23:00 min, DV 4:3, color, no sound. The guests of a cocktail-party gathering relieve each other of white liquid by squeezing and pumping the latex udders on each other’s suits and dresses, ensuring the “milk’s” circulation. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey Actors: anonymous
  • Circulation, 2005 (monitor 4) read more …
    2005, 13:00 min, DV 4:3, color, sound. Glasses and glass containers are filled with an increasing shower of „milk“ dripping down from an invisible source, flooding the table they are standing on. Monitor 4 provides the sound for the entire installation. Concept, direction, backdrop, camera and editing: Mia Bailey

 

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