Alina Tenser. Circles with Sharp Corners

About

For Circles with Sharp Corners, Tenser presents a video installation alongside sculptures made with steel, vinyl, ribbon, and rubber bands, among other materials. The video, Walking in Circles with Sharp Corners, is shot from a first-person, vertical perspective. We see the artist’s legs walking forward through a shallow metal tray filled with water, turning corner after corner. A large ball bearing rushes around the figure’s feet, along with intersecting currents of water. After watching for a minute or two, it becomes clear that the tray is a relatively small rectangle, and that the artist is walking in circles. There’s a tension proposed – particularly via the video’s title – between the circular movement of the body and the hard-edged form of the tray. Recalling Richard Long’s seminal work A Line Made by Walking (1967), it seems as though Tenser’s movements might influence the shape of the container over time. But, while Long uses the act of walking to make a sculpture/photograph that indexes a past activity, Tenser uses the video form to capture her present repetitive effort. The potential for the artist to modulate the shape of the tray loops continuously.