Next Time (2003)
Video. DVD 5’. Ed. 1/5 + 1 P.A. Courtesy: Colección MUSAC. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Next Time is a video that depicts an almost impressionistic image of two boys reclining on a lawn. They are holding a warm conversation amidst this paradise in which the birds sing. In a childish game, Schnitt examines the social depictions of love, romanticism and idealism, as well as specific gender themes. Slowly the camera starts to draw away to show a delicately cared-for garden. The plane gradually widens out, and the romantic park is seen to be surrounded by a motorway. The cheerful sound of the birds disappears and blends in with the urban noise. The idyllic situation experienced in this refuge ceases to hold out any charm, causing the spectator to become concerned at the lack of green zones in the rapid urban sprawl of the cities, and also for the future of children, increasingly trapped in these concrete conurbations. As in Schnitt’s previous works, the inner world transports us into the outside world (or vice versa), placing itself on the borderline between the public and the private. Turning her spectators into voyeurs, she leaves them to note the special facets of the everyday, and then offers them the contrast between the ideal and the real.
– KRISTINE GUzMáN
