Nina Nadig and Eva George Richardson McCrea

curated by Johanna Weiß

Table Games, 2021; Take One (I-IV), 2021

Video installation

until May 30, 2021

For almost half a millenium, card games and especially Poker, have been considered a parable on which social dynamics and power relations can be understood by. The game is about social interactions, amusement, but also about interpersonal negotiation processes. The relationship between the players is full of tension and a dynamic of being together but also playing against one another.

In Table Games the two artists Nina Nadig and Eva George Richardson McCrea are using Poker as the starting point to examine this continuous shifting between characters and roles. In their video installation they show six protagonists playing poker over a long period of time. The players are sitting on a large round table: they look grim, tense and feignedly indifferent. They observe each other, try to assess each other in order to understand game strategies, but without losing focus on their own game.

A combination of tracking shots and two handheld cameras capture the individual face impressions, hand movements and conversations. The game is played with real money. In addition, there is a score script with sets of instructions for the actors. Table Game takes a total of seven hours and the longer the game lasts, the more the characters of the players shift, as the separation between a staged performance and personal interests of the performers becomes blurry. In the course of the game, this shift can be observed through the interactive behavior of the protagonists.

Cinematic props create the character of a feature film and at the same time the staging is a live performance. During the shooting, the broadcast stream was edited live by the two artists. The fast editing recalls aesthetics of television shows or feature films. At other points the long tracking shots underline the overdrawn, almost stereotypical characters and play of the actors. This is characteristic for chamber plays and is adding a theatrical aspect to the recordings. Over the course of seven hours the cameras only face the table, not leaving the viewer a possibility to leave the scenario and creating an almost claustrophobic feeling. In the rooms of FONDA Leipzig, the live edited recording of the live performance is shown as a projection, while the four unedited camera recordings, Take One (I-IV) are shown in the following rooms.

With the shift between the roles of the protagonists and the persistent length of the video installation, the degree between staging, performance and reality is reflected on a conceptual level. Through the projections, Table Games opens up the space and invites the audience to find their own trace of the game.
Text by Johanna Weiß

Nina Nadig (*1991 in Langenhagen, DEU) studies Fine Art at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main in Gerard Byrne's film class since 2018. She received her bachelor's degree in political science and sociology at the University of Münster in 2017. Nadig works among other media with photography, film and field recordings. In her artistic practice she explores different kinds of play, personal histories and sensory experiences of landscape.

Eva George Richardson McCrea (*1990 in Dublin, IRL) is a Fine Art student in Gerard Byrne's film class at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste - Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main since 2020. She earned her bachelor's degree in Fine Art (Sculpture) at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin. In her artistic practice she explores the past as something inherently unstable that must be continually re-established through processes of narration and re-narration, and investigates how authority can be established and destabilised through text, language and image.

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