Somewhere Between an Act and an Actor, 2016

An investigation into the moments when the struggle between many personas collapse.


'Benji Jeffrey, on the Moving Image MA, was showing his ‘Work-in-Progress’, ‘Somewhere Between an Act and an Actor’, which was cleverly projected overhead in the main entrance space of a repurposed car dealership across from the main RCA buildings. The screen was hexagon-shaped and the five minute long piece played across the segments, which progressively switched between a recorded interview with Robert Downey Jr. for Channel 4 with Krishnan Guru-Murthy made in April 2015, where Downey Jr. becomes increasingly unsettled and uncomfortable (and ends up walking out) as he’s probed by Guru-Murthy – and a video made by Jeffrey of an actress, Penny Klein, mimicking Downey Jr.’s speech and facial expressions. There is a moment when Downey Jr. states “none of us are our personas”, and it is this that Jeffrey is investigating with the split-screen – ‘the act’ vs. reality, and that moment when how you think you’re perceived by others comes up against how you actually are, and in the interview, this moment is pinpointed by the camera zooming into Downey Jr.’s face, and its befuddled expression, perfectly copied by Klein, who studied the video for over two hours in preparation. Text comes up on the screen, guiding the viewer - for instance ‘Look at the eyebrows…’, further underscoring the visible shift from being in control to out of it, and heightening the car crash watchability of it.'
Alice Lubbick, Petrie Inventory
 
Shown as part of the Work In Progress show at the RCA, Panorama at the Genesis Cinema and a Spectrum Screening.