Aïda Ruilova

3 May - 6 June 2010 in the Adam Gallery

Ballroom Marfa has selected Aida Ruilova and two of her most recent works, Two-Timers, 2008 and Meet the Eye, 2009 for the Art in the Auditorium project.

Aida Ruilova makes the techniques of montage, repetition and sound her subjects in works that are ultimately concerned with the creation of ambience and atmosphere. Across stylistically diverse scenarios, each of Ruilova's films and videos are dedicated to a single happening that is steeped in inaccessible symbolism. As if entering a film halfway through, the viewer is only privy to a segment of a larger complex narrative. With no setting of the scene and no climax, Ruilova's works inhabit the filmic moments in which psychological space is developed.

Ruilova takes her aesthetic cues from 'King of the Bs' director Roger Corman, and the sexploitation of Jean Rollin's vampire films. She is particularly interested in scenes charged with fear and suspense, and how these are developed as much through sound as through the moving image. Ruilova recognizes the affective qualities of sound - noting that music can change your heartbeat - and uses audio in general to fragment narratives and allude to psychological dis-ease. Against an unpredictable collage of video edits, Ruilova accentuates the gaps between audio and visual elements to further confuse linear notions of time. Her films and videos suggest the influence of Soviet filmmakers, particularly Eisenstein and Tarkovsky, and their theories of cinematic montage. While Ruilova might be viewed as analyzing the lexicon of film through a somewhat deconstructive process, ultimately she makes room for the perpetual formation of new meanings.