Notes on MONGOLIAN BARBECUE

Esperanza Collado has written the following programme notes for one of my most widely screened videos, The Mongolian Barbecue (2009). In spite of its brevity, it encapsulates the work perfectly.

Described by the artist as 'the internalization of vision… and its outcome', The Mongolian Barbecue presents us with the edge of an abyss circumscribed by cinematic possession. The corporeal ritual involved in such a transcendental rapture falls at its ultimate climax into the rhythmical interstices of red frames that subsequently opens the way to a collection of static images from vampire B-movies, the feminine paradise a cinephile could encounter after taking a glimpse at cinema's interior cavities. Insolent in its subversive depiction of bodily intervention, disquieting and perfectly balanced, The Mongolian Barbecue shares with much of Le Cain's work the presence of TV static and the use of sounds that directly refer to medium specificity.