Janet Biggs [web], video artist and art-pioneer of Arctic “kayak ballet”.
Winkleman Gallery [web], "The Arctic Trilogy"
February 11 - March 12, 2011
621 West 27th St, New York, NY 10001
(Nearest subway: 23rd St Station via C or E trains.)
Gallerist Ed Winkleman said that, when it comes to video art, there is a bias in the Art World favoring shaky hand-held camerawork and raw-audio sound ---and that video looking or sounding "too cinematic" might be looked down upon as not “edgy” enough. Winkleman himself takes no stand in the shaky-versus-smooth video debate; if the idea favors high production values, fine ---and if the idea demands shaky video, use shaky video. As he spoke, there was a School Of Bad Sound video piece playing prominently at a gallery just down the street. However, behind Winkleman's own desk a screen showed a graceful underwater video of synchronized swimmers created by Janet Biggs ---an artist alternately slammed and celebrated for capturing achingly beautiful sweeping "National Geographic" style landscapes and for paying as much attention to the music as would John Williams. A Biggs solo will open at Winkleman in early 2011.
Terry Ward:
So how do you describe your creations?
Janet Biggs:
I define myself primarily as an artist of ideas ---that's what drives my projects, not the medium. But that being said, I’ve been working primarily in video and video installations for the past ten/fifteen years ---and not because I’m so committed to the medium but just because it seems to be the most concrete way to express my ideas these days. As far as content, I tend to look at grand stories, epic events, things like free will. I work with a lot of athletes who have that kind of passion to be at the top of their game and to be the very best at what they can be ---and try and set world records, that kind of event. And then take that grand event and sort of look at it in a very individual and idiosyncratic sort of way. Most of the pieces wind up being large projections ---sometimes multiple screens--- so the viewer winds up immersed in the scenes. and sometimes single-channel screens that are more similar to experiencing a theatre event.
Terry Ward:
How is what you’re doing different from ---say--- a sports photographer or documentary filmmaker?
Janet Biggs:
There was a time when I was making work that didn't have a narrative thread through it ---it was more like collage in terms of juxtaposing disparate images together and then allowing a space where the viewer can make whatever connection they want. ( There's always a reason in the studio why I make the connections but I like to leave it somewhat open-ended for the viewer ---there's a kind of shared authorship with the audience.) Although, these days, my pieces are having more and more of a narrative structure. But they're certainly not documentary ---although they might document a specific event. It’s not in a traditional documentary format in that sort of “start here” and “end here” way. Wow it’s an interesting question because for a lot of artists ---myself included--- a lot of those lines, those defining lines, have become sort of less and less defined. Now when I’m making a single-channel piece, there is a start and there is an end ---so it is very similar to something you would experience in terms of film. I think the reason that I separate it, and separate myself, and still define myself as an artist is that it gives me a kind of freedom that a documentary film-maker might not be able to take ---in that I can sort of go anywhere, make any kind of leaps I want to and combine any kind of images to voice some kind of visual statement.
Terry Ward:
The exhibit you're putting together for Winkleman Gallery, how is it different from your usual creations?
Janet Biggs:
I’m really excited about this exhibit. To start with, it’s the first time I’ll be showing with Ed Winkleman and I really like his program. The project I’ve been working on has taken up the past year-and-a-half of my life ---and it looks like it'll continue to take up my life for a while. And to have that kind of commitment to a project ---and be exhibited with him--- is exciting.
The project was ---well--- I was a participant in a program called TAC, "The Arctic Circle," and it’s a program that combines artists and scientists and takes them to the high Arctic. It puts them aboard a sailing ship that was built in 1910 and sends them even further north in the hopes that they'll have some sort of creative response to that event. I went up actually independent of the program to do some work first to an island called Svalbard, which is a Norwegian island about the size of Ireland and its halfway between the top of Europe and the Arctic circle. I started by choreographing a group of kayakers up there ---Inuit and Norwegian and actually there's a French and German kayaker there as well. So I was choreographing a kayak-ballet in and amongst the icebergs and the seals. Then when I got on shipboard, I wound up continuing this project working with a kayak ---bringing it onto the sailing ship and focusing on one of the crew members so that it continued the idea of following an Arctic explorer. When I got back to the studio this kayak ballet and the connection to this crew-member which I thought was going to be one grand project turned into two projects. The one piece with the kayak explorer, which is called Fade To White, has been completed ---and I’ll show that with Ed. Fade To White …looks at what it means to be an Arctic explorer in this day and age. It also becomes a look at longing and desire, and what happens when you give yourself over to that desire ---whether it’s doing some sort of action or event or a life--- and that desire is something that is fading away or no longer exists. I just received a grant to go back to the Arctic…. and I’ve just gotten permission to go into the coal mines up there. That island, Spitsbergen, was primarily developed ---when I say developed I mean a very small town up there and that's kind of it--- but it does have three working coal mines on the island. I’ll be focusing on a woman coal miner ---so underground this time instead of the sort of unbelievable “National Geographic” white-on-white images that I captured the first time.
Terry Ward:
It’s interesting, you’re getting behind the motivations of these people doing these epic activities in these extreme environments. It reminds me of Werner Herzog when he did his movie about people staying at McMurdo Station.
Janet Biggs:
Oh I love that film.
Terry Ward:
I would so like to see it happen: may it come to be some day that you, and he, and a few others ---Robert Ballard maybe--- get put onto a panel together.
Janet Biggs:
That would be my dream-panel. The national science foundation had been running a program where they send one or two artists down to McMurdo per year. I’ve applied to it. And unlike arts grants where you just get the letter that says "yea" or "nay" and you never find out, this is a science grant and you can read the transcripts ---and unfortunately I didn't get it, but I have an understanding as to why. I’m not even sure if they're running it this year. But oh when Hertzog go it, that was so perfect ---just meant to be. That's such a brilliant film.
Terry Ward:
Werner Herzog aced you out and that's why you didn't get to go?!?
Janet Biggs:
(chuckle) Oh no I applied in a different year ---no personal competition. (chuckle) I only wish.
Terry Ward:
There are these artists like Chris Burden where they will do a performance piece in which they arrange to have themselves ---safely--- shot in the arm or something with a gun. You--- it seems like a lot of your art-making actually potentially could kill you.
Janet Biggs:
Well I do say there's a performative side of my work that has to do with filming someone who is doing some sort of action or event but it also includes me needing to do something ---and that's really behind the scenes. Apparently it’s something compelling enough to repeat over and over per project ---but not something I necessarily want the audience to be aware of all the time. You know, as much as any time you watch some amazing piece of footage, there is a camera person there shooting that and they've usually taken a degree of risk to do that. Yes there is a degree of risk in what I do ---which is exciting for me. I’ve been strapped to ---oh let's see. For one project I popped a racecar seat out of a racecar and bolted it onto a piece of aluminum attached to the hitch on the back of a pickup so that I was sitting just a few inches above the ground while strapped in to this seat. This was on the salt flats trying to film motorcycles setting land speed records and we got that truck up over 100 miles per hour ---so I’m kinda going backwards hanging off the back of that truck at 100 miles an hour. But compared to the person I’m filming who's setting a speed record at 234 miles per hour, my risk is pretty minimal. But sure there's risk. When I was in the Arctic and I was in a double kayak with the person I was filming, we were under a massive glacier wall and you know he's an ice-expert (its one of his many titles as an Arctic explorer) and he just kinda quietly says "if the glacier calves now, we'll die ---are you okay" and ah you know the shots looked good so I was okay.
Terry Ward:
Yeah I’ve heard from geologist-friends about unstable cliff faces ---something like thirty meters per second or something--- when stuff wants to fall down, it’s going to be on top of you faster than you can run. Let alone paddle.
Janet Biggs:
Yes its true its true. We also had this wonderful moment where we were kayaking around a whale carcass that had beached and there were eight polar bears that were feeding on the whale carcass. No matter where you go in that region you're required by law to either carry a high-powered rifle yourself or to be with someone that has one ---just to keep both the bears and you safe. They try and discourage the polar bears from developing a taste for human tartar. So we had someone in the Zodiac-boat that was armed, but there were times that the Zodiac just couldn't follow us because of all the chunks of ice in the water ---and we'd gotten way ahead of the Zodiac. We were off in front, and then two of the bears came swimming towards us, sniffing the air you know kinda checking us out ---but luckily they had full bellies so it wasn't a big risk.
Terry Ward:
Boy, shades of Werner Herzog again: "Grizzly Man" this time. So did those bears who were thinking about it but were too full to eat you ---did they make it into any of the footage or is that just a memory you keep?
Janet Biggs:
Actually those bears did not hit the cutting room floor. They're in the video, but not swimming towards us. That part I cut out. I didn't feel that it was necessary for the ---well it wasn't part of the loose narrative I was forming in the piece. That was more of a personal event. But you do see those bears on land in the piece.
Terry Ward:
In this project, why are they using ---is it a sloop or a brig or whatever--- why a sailing ship? Is that for the quiet or the shallow draft or not-scaring-away animals with motor noise?
Janet Biggs:
We flew up to Svalbard ---which is Spitsbergen, they’re the same island--- and there we got on a two-masted schooner (though it does have an auxiliary motor in case the wind isn't right). The program was set up with us on a sailing vessel, the Noorderlicht, because of the director's love of sea ---but also it gave us an intimate relationship with nature that certainly wouldn't happen on one of the bigger tourist-vessels. You really were in the elements very much. There were 18 of us on board. That was it. We didn't have sonar so we slammed into a few icebergs. Luckily the ship had a steel ice-hull so we were okay. You got a feel for what the original explorers experienced. And there was a kind of intimacy with that nature which I think few people have. It was a great program.
Terry Ward:
Ye’ don't see much wildlife from a motorboat, but do from a canoe. I guess the quietness helps.
Janet Biggs:
It really does. It’s amazing. As you sail into a fjord, if there are walruses on the shore or swimming nearby, they're certainly not going to be startled by loud noises. They just hang out. So you get to see things that you probably wouldn't otherwise.
Terry Ward:
When I ask other artists about what they do to get ready to create (special clothes, music, get drunk, get sober) it seems pretty simple compared to what I imagine you have to arrange ---what with survival gear and plane tickets and such. It’s got to be the opposite of the more party-oriented studio artists. You must need to be very focused and maybe have special training so, like in the Arctic, you don't ---um--- die. What gets you ready?
Janet Biggs:
(chuckle) It depends of the project. For the Arctic project part of my preparation was: I had to learn to kayak because I didn't know how. So I learned to kayak in the Hudson River. I actually joined the New York kayak polo team because it was aggressive and really pushed me to be a good kayaker since later I would be kayaking in Arctic waters where hypothermia comes on quickly. So apparently hanging' upside-down in the Hudson a lot is what prepared me for that ---and ingesting a lot of Hudson River or New York City street runoff water I think. So there was a part of it where physically I have to prepare myself. There's a part where I have to prepare myself in terms of clothing like you said. But I do also get to do the party side ---I don't deny myself that. When I’m editing at times I’ll go around the clock and that usually involves sitting at the computer with the rewards ---beer, wine, or chocolate--- to get me through the all-night bits. So I can do both sides.
Terry Ward:
It almost seems like ---at times, seeing from here on the side lines--- like the way some of the epic athletes you follow have to raise funds from corporate sponsorships and special events to fund their training and travels so they can go the Olympic trials or whatever, it seems like sometimes you're in their same lifestyle. The way they need to fund the travel to the venues and the training and the specialized gear; you're kind of in the same fundraising boat. Anyway, I’m impressed and intrigued by the whole process there.
Janet Biggs:
Well, probably the woman I filmed who holds three speed records on a motorcycle, was one of those moments where I was truly inspired by someone else's commitment to what they were doing. The Bonneville Flats speed trials is an international event. When I talk about teams, there was a French team, she came the US, and there were all these people there competing with almost no corporate sponsorship. A lot of other motorsports have major corporate sponsorship. So it was interesting to see ---these were like two- and three-people operations and they worked like crazy retooling bikes in their garages for the entire year. They scrape together funds any way they can and then they scrape together the funds to get themselves there. One of my favorite teams came from Australia and they couldn't afford to ship a bike over. So they bought an old Honda on eBay and rented a garage in the states and flew over with suitcases full of turbo engines and all this stuff and just worked for a month like demons in this garage and retooled the eBay-bought bike and then ended up setting the speed record on it. Leslie was a young woman who was committed to riding bikes when she was probably under the legal age of being able to ride bikes and just did whatever it took to be able to compete. She would resell used bikes, or anything that she needed to do in order to get there ---and now she's incredibly successful at it. Now she's getting a bit of corporate sponsorship. But it’s still an under-recognized event …so it’s still not well-funded.
Terry Ward:
Is most of your being-an-artist funded by grants? I make paintings and it’s a simple matter : I make these art-objects which can be sold. I’ve often wondered how it is that video-artists manage to make a living.
Janet Biggs:
Well it’s a different structure for a lot of video artists than say for you as a painter ---as an object-maker. I do sell my work. If it’s a single-channel video it’s done in an edition ---just like a photograph. I do editions of five. And those five videos are available for sale. They have been sold both to museums, institutions, and to private collectors. My multiple-channel videos which take up a whole room: there're less private-collectors who select that work but they have been acquired by museums ---and I usually make those as unique pieces, not editions. I think there're probably less collectors that understand the medium in terms of private collecting ---although that's changing now. Originally I sold more in Europe because the medium was accepted in a different way there. But now there's amazingly strong collectors for videos both in the states and overseas. But I also really depend on grants ---especially because I do these big projects and seem to be doing more and more of them. They sort of take over my life for a year and they include a lot of travel, a lot of equipment, so I am forever writing grant proposals. …There are times that I’ll have to hold off a project if I don't have the funds to complete it in the way I want to ---to realize it in the way I want. But what it really does is it makes me more aggressive in terms of figuring out how to get that money or how to get what I want. Originally when I was working in my studio and I was painting and I was making photo-based work it was less of an issue. Now that it’s become these grand projects and I’m going out ---it just has made me become more resourceful in how I can figure out how to do it. And that includes raising money from all sorts of sources. I’ve been able to raise money through individuals, through corporations, as well as grants.
Terry Ward:
Assuming some audience who aren't familiar with the trade terminology, how do you describe "single-channel" and "multiple-channel" and such? And also the upcoming Winkleman show: is that going to be single-channel or multiple- or what?
Janet Biggs:
Sure, well, a single-channel video is very much like anyone would normally experience watching a film or television show. Single-channel means its one projection or one screen: a single video that you watch either on a monitor or projected on a wall ---thus being "single" in how its directed to the audience. A multiple-channel piece is literally multiple projections or multiple monitors so that in my case I’ve done pieces with projections that are ---say--- three projections on three different walls. You walk in and you're really standing in the middle of this environment. Pieces can be--- I’ve had pieces as large as twelve-channel so that there were twelve separate videos running all at once but they're connected in that it makes one single piece. And for the upcoming exhibition at Winkleman, its hard to say because one of the pieces is completed, one of the pieces is yet to be completed. But at this point it looks like it might be two single-channel pieces that are connected ---connected in terms of content--- but are still two distinct pieces. I’m envisioning them both being projected fairly large scale.
Terry Ward:
Do you change the art to be able to sell or to fit gallery expectations --or to be able to get grants or anything like that?
Janet Biggs:
I don't. I’m unbelievably stubborn in that regard. I’d probably have an easier life if I were a little less stubborn ---but I think that artwork some tells you that it needs to be made and how it needs to be made. Trying to massage it into something else usually weakens it. So I really let the piece dictate whatever final form it needs to take. Whether that makes it harder for me or the gallerist ---well that's sort of “who I am” and what it means to take me on as an artist for a gallery. I had tried in the past to be a little less stubborn and I’ve had galleries that were happy for me to be less “pushed” and to have less big installations and more single-channel videos. But then I started trying to make less single-channel videos. Single-channel videos started seeming a little passive-aggressive in that you kind of make an audience sit there and there's a beginning and an end ---but unlike a Hollywood experience there's usually no payoff, no money-shot. It’s not necessarily the same kind of structure and you can find yourself kind of meandering through an artist's mind in a very long and uncomfortable way. And I didn't want to subject my audience to that. I liked video installation because the audience became author of their own experience in that they can walk in, walk through the installation, and essentially, leave whenever they want. So at one point an attempt to try to be more commercial and to do more single-channel video was an interesting challenge for me and I think initially not successful and I veered away from it. But the challenge of doing it and doing it well kind of stuck in the back of my mind ---and of late it’s been a method that I go back to again and again I think because it is a challenge for me. It’s easy for me to understand how to create a piece through multiple-channel and to try to make something that isn't passive-aggressive, isn’t boring, and still conveys whatever idea I’m thinking about at the moment. In terms of single-channel is interesting ---it’s exciting when I’m successful at it so I’ve gone back to that. That might have made a little difference in terms of sales. I don't know. But it is still not the easiest medium for a gallery to sell.
Terry Ward:
Then it’s totally okay with you if someone walks into the middle of your video and then walks out before it’s over?
Janet Biggs:
With some of my pieces its very okay. Some of the pieces like I’m doing now have a little bit more of a narrative structure. But that is the format of a gallery ---its not like you're being seated and its being screened as in a film situation. So yes ---of course I’m hoping that the piece is strong enough that if they come in toward the middle they’ll feel compelled to then stay and watch it through once in its entirety. But I think that part of presenting it that way ---as an art work in a gallery--- is knowing that your audience is not going to all show up at a certain hour and sit there until the end of it.
Terry Ward:
I’ve seen a lot of art video with shaky camerawork and badly-mixed, overmodulated sound ---and sure there's sometimes a creative use for that, but usually it just annoys me after a while. Your creations often have high production values and they're just soothing to see ---a sweeping cinematic look, quality sound mixing, these “National Geographic” landscapes ---and yet they're still clearly “art” videos.
Janet Biggs:
Thanks. I really do care about my production values. But I care about because it sort of plays in service to the idea. For my Arctic work, I actually upped my value from the piece that you saw (the swimmers playing in a back area of Winkleman): shooting all in high-definition. Its very rich, very luscious footage. I also I really care about the sound. For a long time when I was making videos, well, that's where I was comfortable : making visual images ---and I really kind of ignored the sound and left it just inherent. The sound was whatever happened to be there in the shoot that was good enough. It took me a while to understand that sound is equally as important as the visuals and so now I work with all sorts of musicians, composers, performers to come up with scores that make the piece stronger. So that really matters to me too in terms of production values. I go to really good sound studios to record musicians over and over again ---I’m as obsessive with that as I am in the terms of the filming…. There's a certain quality of the imagery that can be akin to certain early romantic landscape paintings. You look at some of these images and it’s hard not to think of them in terms of Caspar Freidrich or even Turner ---you know that quality of light. That light that happens in the Arctic gives the contemporary video a sort of historical marker. Having said that, it’s also important for me to take that historical quality and throw it on its head and look at why it really isn’t that way. I’m… interested in a certain kind of initial seduction. I really like to seduce viewers. So there's a kind of “formal” quality to the work that allows them to enter. And then once they're in there, and there's a level of commitment in terms of the audience giving over to the piece ---then I can go more interesting places in terms of conceptual underpinnings of the work... But I also love …Benning's videos and those were shot on those really early toy cameras. So I think that good work can be done ---you know it’s an interesting medium because often if you have better equipment and can throw more money at it, it doesn’t necessarily make a better piece. It’s interesting when I’m on the road and out of New York …it feels like video is such a new medium and its challenging and exciting for an audience ---yet video, because I’ve been doing it for a long time, I think of it as very middle-aged. And in New York we've kind of already gone through that stage where it was obligatory that an artist ---no matter what their primary medium was--- had to make some videos. There was the obligatory bad video in the corner or in the project room that they made ---and I’m kind of relieved right now that video art is not "trendy" so its weeded-out to the people who have a different sort of commitment to it….
Terry Ward:
If there's ever a gripe about your artwork ---by a critic or in your own head--- how would you reply if you ever got that chance?
Janet Biggs:
Let’s see. I was recently criticized for my high production values from a critic. I wish that they had ignored the production values and addressed the content of it more. That's why I make the work. As I said there's a layer of seduction that happens for me ---hopefully it happens for the viewer--- but in the end it’s all about the idea. So I will stand behind the ideas and take whatever criticism is lobbed at me for them (much more than I will for the medium itself). …In terms of personal critique? Oh, there are days I come running out of my studio yelling and making career-ending decisions ---but usually when I’m doing that I’m pushing myself and I’m kind of out on that limb far enough and taking enough risks in terms of the content of the piece that I may make a really good piece. Or may fall on my face. But those are the places that I have to go to push the work.
Terry Ward:
So you've actually had some "damn it, I’m not making art any more" kinds of days?
Janet Biggs:
Oh I’ve had some. Oh. I’m not alone in this, but sure! I have. Or I have no idea what I’m making in terms of art any more …the piece has sort of taken over and its making these decisions that are somehow outside of my control ---or they feel that way at the moment. Or that I’ve just given myself over to it and I fear that I’ve stopped having a critical eye ---I’ve lost any kind of distance from it, so I can't judge it. But being in those places of risk is the only way to push the work. So, whad'ya' gonna’ do? …When …I first started showing in galleries I was making god awful work …I was making work that I thought was "smart art" and I desperately wanted to make "smart art" at the time. I was reading a lot of theory and I was trying to make work that essentially illustrated somebody else's ideas and thoughts and it just wasn’t my voice ---it really was just illustration. And so in terms of developing whatever my personal voice has …(been through) work. …When it’s not so successful in terms of getting at what I wanted, well those times can teach me a lot ---I learned a lot personally from some of those sorts of pieces but I don't want a big audience for those. Then also like when I first got to the Arctic I had at first such an overly-defined project in terms of this kayak-ballet and a narrative with a guy and a kayak and there was no way that what I had proposed for myself in my own head would ever be completed ---because of the environment. I had to come around to letting the piece grow itself through failure and working it out. But then I was much more successful than I thought I was going to be. I came home with a ridiculous amount of footage and had to make real decision rather than having them made for me by the environment.
Terry Ward:
Let’s hear about your influences and the Art World and all that.
Janet Biggs:
I was lucky in that my family always supported me in whatever I wanted to do. My father is a musician and composer and so I think there's a certain kind of understanding and affinity for what I do so that was always supported. …School was definitely of use. I went to Moore college of art which is the only all-women's art college as an undergraduate and I think both at times reacting against a majority-male faculty at an all-women's art school and at times being inspired by a lot of that faculty ---I think it made me very aware of who I was in terms of gender and what that meant both personally and in terms of the art world. So I’m definitely indebted to that school. I think I am constantly inspired by the people I work with in terms of film. Like Audun Tholfsen, the Arctic explorer that I just worked with. He’s one of those amazing people who has defined his life just in terms of pure desire ---he really embodies that romantic idea of the Arctic explorer, minus the sort of early white male colonizer aspect of it which I have difficulty with. But just in terms of the romance of it, living in and discovering the environment, he's the real deal. And has done things like: purposefully frozen himself into the ice and wintered-over at the pole for nine months, he crossed Greenland with another person on skis, that kind of commitment to the environment ---and that’s forever inspiring to me. The Art World is an interesting place to be: it combines your social life and your business and your passion and its all sort of bundled up into this one place. So for that, it’s complicated. It’s complicated to navigate. There are times when it does feel like its "who you know". There are times it feels like "what school you went to," but I think ultimately ….there isn’t just one Art World. There are many happening all at once. There are many art worlds and there are many different careers and career paths that are successful ---so it’s just sort of figuring out how you fit in it or how to tailor it to be what you need it to be.
Terry Ward:
Future projects?
Janet Biggs:
Right now I’m sitting in a motel room in Charlotte (note: North Carolina) because I’m filming NASCAR.
Terry Ward:
NASCAR? Well that's probably where no one in the Art World had gone before.
Janet Biggs:
(chuckle) Ha, yeah we'll see how this works out. This is an interesting project. I have a show coming up at a museum here in Charlotte and they wanted me ---they were keen on commissioning a new piece for the exhibition--- and I thought "wow, Charlotte ---what's in Charlotte?" And um, "I know it’s the home of NASCAR." I have absolutely no connection to NASCAR ---so I’ll propose doing a piece on NASCAR. Which I did. Its early enough in the project that I’m not sure where I’m going with it ---other than: I don't want fulfill and Art World expectations of what NASCAR means, and I don't want to fulfill any NASCAR expectations of what the Art World means. So right now I’m just shooting a lot and trying to figure out where to go and what to do. I’ll tell you: the pit crews are unbelievable! In terms of precision and striving for perfection its ballet. It’s gorgeous.
Terry Ward:
I was just going to say: I can see with your interest in, say, extreme choreography ---someone who goes to Arctic waters to choreograph kayakers in frigid water--- has got to admire the coordinated team air-drilling and all that stuff that these pit crews do.
Janet Biggs:
Oh I completely do. I filmed one race so far and was actually right over the wall with the pit crew and now I’m down working with Joe Gibbs racing and I’m here to film the pit crew practice. They practice for like four hours a day ---every day. It’s a really rigid workout program to these guys ---to have that muscle-memory and be skilled and what they do so they can be fluid and choreographed when the car comes in.
Terry Ward:
Now I imagine Broadway choreographers instructing with snappy dance moves.
Janet Biggs:
(chuckle) Oh I’m dying to see how these drills are run. So I’ll let you know.
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wink_biggs_07.jpg.
Installation view of:
Janet Biggs Flight
Four-channel video.
1999
wink_biggs_06.jpg.
Installation view of:
Janet Biggs Fade To White
Single-channel video.
2010
wink_biggs_01.jpg, wink_biggs_02.jpg,
wink_biggs_03.jpg, wink_biggs_04.jpg,
wink_biggs_05.jpg. Production stills from:
Janet Biggs Fade To White
Single-channel video.
2010
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