Jordan Crandall - Heatseeking

"An erotic imaginary of technology/body/artillery fusion, composed through visual and rhythmic networks and contoured under the conditions of war." - Jordan Crandall

Heatseeking is a series of 7 films shot by artist Jordan Crandall in the San Diego/Tijuana border region. Captured on 16mm film as well as on video from surveillance cameras, miniature "stealth" cameras, and infrared thermal imaging systems, Heatseeking addresses the increasingly sophisticated and aggressive systems through which the border is policed. Although it points specifically at a technics of control, Heatseeking is not a one-way argument about power. In the films, Crandall evokes the erotic tension of watching and being watched and explores the new vectors of desire that erupt in an increasingly militaristic culture. Crandall says: "The 'border' is not only a territorial marker but a provisional divider, helping to contour self and body, and its policing mechanisms have subjective dimensions. Tracking, targeting, and identifying formats begin to seep into the way we see, behave, and desire. They enter into the very structure of perception. The camera marks the place of battle." With Heatseeking, as with his previous project Drive, Crandall is occupied with the development of a postcinematic language. Combining cinematic formats with a military-driven "strategic seeing," he moves toward a political language that is resonant with the visual networks in which we are now entangled. Crandall targets the power dynamics around contemporary moving images: "sites where body and senses are adjusted, oriented, 'armed,' and contoured within complex new formats of movement." Heatseeking was commissioned by InSITE2000, a bi-national project of 27 cultural institutions in the US and Mexico. It is also currently on view in San Diego until February 25. Pressetext