Rodney Graham. The Phonokinetoscope

Rodney Graham´s Phonokinetoscope (2001) is a five-minute 16mm film loop in which the artist is seen riding his Fischer Original bicycle through Berlin´s Tiergarten while taking LSD, to the soundtrack of a fifteen-minute song (written and performed by Graham) recorded on a vinyl LP. The turntable drives the projection of the film; the film starts when the needle is placed on the record and stops when the needle is taken off. Graham´s ride evokes the Swiss scientist Albert Hoffman´s famous 1943 bicycle ride home after an experimental dose of LSD as well as Paul Newman´s backward-facing ride in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; the accompanying music presents a thicket of riffs and borrowings. As the images and visual details repeat in the film´s endless loop, the artist´s Phonokinetoscope refers to a surprising number of works of art and literature, displaying a world rich with subtle meaning. In this illustrated study of Phonokinetoscope, Shep Steiner describes the work as marking Graham´s transition into a new medium. Steiner positions Graham´s practice in relation to postminimalist practice and that of other artists including Dan Graham, but especially, Ian Wallace and Jeff Wall; considers Graham´s rhetoric of playfulness; and finally, beyond the web of references, argues for a notion of allegory and memory theater keyed to the durational work yet satisfying the aesthetic standards of static art. Phonokinetoscope, Steiner argues, looks back to Graham´s earlier works focusing on the notion of protocinema and forward to his later musical preoccupations.