Joan Jonas ─ I Want to Live in the Country and Other Romances

Joan Jonas approaches video as a drawing tool, a mirror, and a framing device. Since1968, she has used video and performance to explore ways of seeing, the rhythms of ritual, and thearchetypal authority of objects and gestures. With her influential 1976 work, I Want to Live in theCountry (And Other Romances) Jonas nimbly structures an elliptical narrative that unmistakablyestablishes her voice and visual lexicon. I Want to Live in the Country features two locations--theuntamed landscape of Nova Scotia and an artist's studio in New York City--as it examines themes ofloss, displacement, time, and memory through still life compositions and Super-8 footage. Jonascreates a meditation of frames within frames, monitors within monitors, overlaid with poeticmusings--a murmured story of the unconscious.Jonas's influences have included the writing of SamuelBeckett, the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Japanese Noh theater, and the work of John Cage. Stripped downto intimate, indelible gestures, I Want to Live in the Country (And Other Romances) explores aBeckettian dilemma: "I am both the observer and the object that I observe. Which of the two is thereal 'I'?" In this richly illustrated Afterall book, Susan Morgan examines the emergence of Jonas'soriginal work from this synthesis of influences and ideas.Joan Jonas, Professor of Visual Arts atMIT, is known for her pioneering video and performance art.

Susan Morgan has published widely in periodicals including Aperture, Metropolitan Home, Elle, and Real Life Magagine.