Toward a feminist "Coney Island of the avant-garde": Janie Geiser recasts the cinema of attractions.
Chapter
Overview
abstract
Discusses the film installation 'The Spider's Wheels' (2006; illus.) by the American artist Janie Geiser. The author outlines the history of the project and the artist's interest in silent film actresses, outlines her methodology for collecting images, and analyses the claustrophobia and helplessness of the heroines in the footage. She charts the changing nature of the film installation from the 1960s onwards, asserts that 'The Spider's Wheels' represents the pinnacle of the form for its use of multiple screens, and three-dimensional focus, likens the style of the work to that of a fairgroud attraction, and examines the work in the context of the theories of Margaret Morse on the genre.
