Vicki and Alex, like the clouds

Jane Topping's film 'Vicki and Alex, Like the Clouds' (video, 16 mins., 2015) was exhibited in the Caldewgate 1991-2015 exhibition, part of a programme of events, exhibitions and talks celebrating 24 years of Fine Art at Caldewgate Campus, Carlisle. In 'Vicki and Alex, Like the Clouds – Final Edit' (2015), machine-generated characters, discuss a Blade Runner prop. The film imitates the Esper machine in Blade Runner, working to reveal a hidden landscape behind an image. Using found photographs of couples, Vicki and Alex, Like the Clouds implies that the passive lens has captured something fundamental about the power play of the female/male relationship that, when looked at in retrospect, is revelatory. Perhaps more plausibly, the film suggests that the camera has recorded a system of signs, which may be universal – a performance of heterosexuality.