Omer Fast's Godville at gb agency, Paris

Omer Fast's video installation Godville was presented at gb agency in Paris from January 7 to February 18, 2006. The 50-minute double projection on a single screen, previously shown at inIVA in London, explores the lives of actors portraying 18th-century characters in the living history museum of Williamsburg, Virginia. Fast interviews these residents-actors, who are paid to live as historical figures in a reconstructed colonial city. The work juxtaposes interior views of the town with edited interviews, creating a narrative that blurs reportage and fiction. Fast's technique involves a slow, frontal cinematography contrasted with accelerated speech, revealing a 'daily schizophrenia' as described by one inhabitant. The piece echoes Fast's earlier work CNN Concatenated, shown at the Kunstmuseum Basel in the exhibition Covering the Real. Thierry Davila's review praises Fast's intelligence and mastery, noting the work's vertiginous depth beneath its calm surface.