CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 8/21/2014

Ed Atkins

Featured image, a still from Cur, Ed Atkins' 2010 HD video with sound, is reproduced from JRP|Ringier's new monograph on the artist. The following text runs alongside the image:
"EXT. A COPSE OF BLACK MAPLE, CANADA, NOON, CONTINUOUS.
Dark sap SPURTS out of a metal flue jutting out of a black maple tree. Too thick to SOUND. Slowing to a HEAVY trickle, then a dribble, then a steady rhythm of drips. Caught by a battered bucket beneath. Someone whistling OFF-SCREEN. Something tuneless, hackneyed. Through teeth, no-doubt broken. Whisky hanging stale and LEADEN on the breath. An ELDERLY tremolo. A KICK drum forces out another SPOUT of sap, landing with a TAP of HI-HAT in the bucket. The spigot like a CATHETER. Sap like PISS from a desperate, DEHYDRATED bladder. Tart, not sweet. Whistling transforms into HUMMING, a voice: UN AMOUR SI GRAND QU’IL NIE SON OBJET by Ghédalia Tazartès. An incredible DISLODGING. A PARCHED throat CREAKING like the concertina joint in a drinking straw. Again, the scene DRYS UP. This for at least a MILLION fucking YEARS, till sap becomes amber."