Janine Antoni

Touch, 2002

Still from video installation

Duration: 9:37 minute loop

Projection size: 14 feet 8 inches x 13 feet 2 inches

(447.04 x 401.32 cm)

Touch is a video in which Antoni set-up a temporary tightrope on the beach in front of her childhood home. Through the camera, the line of the tight rope appears parallel to the ocean’s horizon as Antoni walks back and forth. Under her weight, the wire dips to touch the horizon allowing Antoni to balance there for just a moment. Antoni says: “This view was imprinted in my memory. It is a place where my childhood imagination had wandered untold hours. The horizon seemed to mark the edge between our island and the world out there. I had always thought of the horizon as a place that could not be pinpointed or in any way fixed; it is constantly receding as you approach it. Still, I wanted to walk in this impossible place, to walk on the line of my vision, or along the edge of my imagination.”