Spákonufellshöfði | 9:45 min | MiniDV | color, sound | 2025
A two part video recorded using an in-camera editing method I call "swiss-cheesing": scanning back and forth on a dv tape to record over previous footage at random. Part 2 features a new day recorded over the first, which still sometimes appears in between and underneath through video errors . Recorded in Iceland on May 17 and 29, 2025.
Text from the exhibition Disabled Documentation, July 19 – September 19, 2026 at FEI Arts Guangzhou
Curated by 严凯琳 (Kailin Yan) & 黄冠 (Guan Huang)
Using the linear storage system of DV tapes as a means of in-camera editing, new footage is recorded over existing material, branching a new timeline from the sequence of the original recording. Spákonufellshöfði is perhaps the work within Zoe’s practice that most clearly embodies this method .
Through the film’s contrasting layers, traces of older footage can be distinctly sensed as they suddenly surface in the present, or as glitches where they collide with newly recorded material. These interruptions repeatedly disrupt the continuity of viewing, like a striking line of rust cutting through a freshly painted surface. The image’s inherent coordinates of time are thereby made open to revision and confusion. When a familiar fragment suddenly reappears before our eyes, the act of remembering what we have seen also becomes a game of discovery.