On Reflection is one of a showreel of 13 short films and part of Marcia Farquhar’s 12 Shooters project. Each film is directed by a different artist-filmmaker, and derived from a different work from the past 12 years of Marcia Farquhar’s practice. These works include monologues, visitations, walking tours, upside-down exorcisms, a Humpty Dumpty seance, and her famous life-size Punch & Judy show. The 12 Shooters project also features short film collaborations with Zoë Brown, Bruce+Marshall, Jem Finer, Judith Goddard, Andrew Kötting, Trine Nedreaas, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Uriel Orlow, Tom Paine, Sarah Pucill, Tal Sterngast, Gary Stevens.

Written by J. Maizlish Mole about On Reflection

“…12 Shooters presented its participants with a sort of puzzle: how was a new and independent work to be produced out of the substance, if not the form, of an old one, and to what extent would it then reflect its original precedent? On Reflection is like the answer about the question. While each of the thirteen collaborations went somewhere absolutely distinct in its response, On Reflection went perhaps the furthest afield. It is an exception among exceptions, in that it does not revisit an old work at all – instead, it is an entirely new work on the subject of revisitation. So in a sense it lies somewhere outside the boundaries of 12 Shooters, and in another sense it is absolutely central – perhaps the most direct answer to the open questions at the core of the project….”

“…Simply put, Marcia was to watch old footage of past performances while Dryden took still images of her resulting expressions, whatever they might be. These captured expressions would then be synchronized with the sound of the screened footage which had provoked them, along with whatever noises Marcia made by way of response (and the sound of the shutter made at the time of the corresponding photograph). Dryden didn’t really want to reflect with Marcia, he wanted to see what happened when Marcia reflected by herself. I guess he wanted to reflect on her reflection – it’s like a cubist study drawn out over time, considering the uncomfortable subject in her every state and from every possible angle….”

12 Shooters - was presented by DODO - A Farquhar/Maizlish Co-production

 
Stills from On Reflection (2007)