Rodney Graham

Rodney Graham's The Phonokinetoscope (2001) is a five-minute 16mmfilm loop in which the artist is seen riding his Fischer Original bicycle through Berlin'sTiergarten while taking LSD, to the soundtrack of a fifteen-minute song (written and performed byGraham) recorded on a vinyl LP. The turntable drives the projection of the film; the film startswhen the needle is placed on the record and stops when the needle is taken off. Graham's ride evokesthe Swiss scientist Albert Hoffman's famous 1943 bicycle ride home after an experimental dose of LSDas well as Paul Newman's backward-facing ride in Butch Cassidy and the SundanceKid; the accompanying music presents a thicket of riffs and borrowings. As the images andvisual details repeat in the film's endless loop, the artist's sometimes playful observations andreferences become increasingly complex. The Phonokinetoscope refers to a surprising number of worksof art and literature, displaying a world rich with subtle meaning.

In thisillustrated study of The Phonokinetoscope, Shep Steiner describes the work asmarking Graham's transition into a new medium. Steiner positions Graham's practice in relation topostminimalist practice and that of other artists including Dan Graham, but especially, Ian Wallaceand Jeff Wall; considers Graham's rhetoric of playfulness; and finally, beyond the web ofreferences, argues for a notion of allegory and memory theater keyed to the durational work yetsatisfying the aesthetic standards of static art. The Phonokinetoscope, Steiner argues, looks backto Graham's earlier works focusing on the notion of protocinema and forward to his later musicalpreoccupations.

Shep Steiner, an art historian and critic, teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver. His writing has appeared in C-Magazine, Parachute, Journal of Visual Culture, and other publications.