Video Still from "abduct"

single-channel video (3:00; sound)
Courtesy of the artist and 47 Canal, New York

Xavier Cha’s potently unique work uses the visual language of cinema to play with spectator perception and expectations. This video playfully references horror and sci-fi movies by emphasizing the genres’ inherent black humor and absurdity. Cha employs innovative editing techniques that play with filmic time and narrativity crafting a rich text that taps into the corporeal and libidinal dimensions of emotion, alienation, and voyeurism.

Cha’s videos manipulate high-quality film production in a manner that deconstructs genre and critiques the industrial-corporate film complex while elevating the medium into a new strata of aesthetic range and artfulness. Recalling the work of twentieth century experimental film pioneer Maya Deren, Cha’s practice utilizes the choreography and transcendental dimensions of movement and the body in both meditative and surrealist manners while using the image of the body as a metaphor for filmmaking.