ABSTRACT
Tacita Dean's FILM is a resonant intervention into contemporary digital media culture. FILM was conceived and designed specifically for the Turbine Hall, a vast space that runs the entire length and height of the Tate Modern building. The mountain image is inspired by Mount Analogue, an allegorical novel by Rene Daumal about climbing a difficult-to-perceive mountain. The life cycle of FILM actually makes a case for the co-existence of the analog and the digital. Dean has explicitly referred to early cinema as a source of inspiration for FILM, for its sense of excitement about the new medium. The historicity in Dean's work is in keeping with what has been dubbed the "temporal turn" in contemporary art. The spectator videos of FILM at the Tate Modern transform the piece from an imposing installation experienced communally in a landmark public space into a small digital video experienced privately.
