Other (2009)

Tracey Moffatts fast paced montage videos compile scenes from film and television programs selected in response to a particular theme or coding This is the final work in a suite of 7 videos made over the last decade the previous works include Lip 1999 Artist 2000 Love 2003 Doomed 2007 Revolution 2008 and Mother 2009 Other is one of the most mesmerising of the series as it edits together scenes of interracial encounters It opens with first contact sequences films in which the beach and the shallow waters are a zone of encounter between ships and canoes between Europeans and nonEuropeans It then moves to images of looking of two different peoples meeting for the first time and appraising each other visually As imagined by Hollywood and TV directors this is a moment of both curiosity and desire where glances become lingering and erotically charged