Choques, 2005-2006

Author: Francis Alÿs

Video installation with 9 channels, colour and sound.

The artist offers different points of view of a curious accident he himself had when he fell nine times to the ground due to the antics of a dog that “unexpectedly” crossed his path. But even here when the occurrence had a cause, “the development and resolution of the piece,” as he himself explains, “fall within a completely open field of possibilities.”

“So the study was, and to a certain extent still is, the space in which one studies the possibilities of a piece that nevertheless took place outside it.” And the production here takes on the double meaning of preparing and also causing, because Alÿs’ work largely depends on what may happen on the fly. In fact, one could say that on his walks Alÿs has shed light on an old subject beyond the act of wandering itself: peripeteia.