Indigestion
"Indigestion" (1995) is an interactive installation by Diller & Scofidio.
Diller & Scofidio: "Indigestion" (detail); photo: Jan Sprij
Indigestion, by New York artists Diller + Scofidio consists of a performance between a man and a woman of ambiguous relation performed across a dining room table. The performance is enacted through a video image of a table top projected onto a flat horizontal surface of the approximate size and height of a dining room table. The characters are introduced through an audio recording of their voices and images of their hands on the surface of the table.
Throughout their 5-minute video "performance", viewers are able to navigate across a digitally generated image of the table top through the use of an interactive computer interface. By selecting choice and the mobility of their points of view, new facets of the scene and fleeting, subtle images of the action become apparent. Offering alternate representations of the performance, Indigestion critiques stereotypes of gendered behaviour as they are exhibited in the "contractual" space of the installation, that is, the unwritten social contract or rules of the game.
