Replay Marclay – Acmi Melbourne

American Artist Christian Marclay explores the overlapping sensations of sound and image through his groundbreaking practice of pastiche and collage in the Replay Marclay exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.
We happened upon the exhibition whilst exploring Federation Square on a blistering hot January day, actually whilst hunting out public toilets, and what we found was a playful and avant garde treatment of popular culture.
A particular highlight for me was the Crossfire installation, in which Marclay turns firearms into percussion instruments. Completely confronted and paralysed by the sensation of being shot at from all sides (as characters from films like Pulp Fiction and the Terminator battle it out with each other), it takes some time before you relax enough in order to really hear the beat and the music within the gunfire, and when you finally do, it’s all the more appreciated.
Another highlight was the Video quartet installation which I have seen before at the Tate Modern (although never with all four projectors working!!), this installation does not require a deep love of art to be appreciated. Its aesthetic and aural appeal is relatively broad, and it would be difficult to find anyone not feeling a deep visceral sense of joy after viewing it.
However these gems meant that I was even more disappointed by some of his more esoteric pieces like Gestures, which involved him scratching records in order to make them into musical instruments.
Replay Marclay was an impressive exhibition that played out on both a cerebral and visceral level.