Abstract/Summary

In this article I argue that thresholds of attention or distraction provoke a phenomenological engagement with the ephemerality of moving image installations. Thus, patterns of spectatorial attention and distraction offer a potential methodology to examine ephemeral installations which exist for a limited duration, in particular in exhibition spaces. The article probes a range of conceptualizations of attention with relation to contemporary phenomenological film theory, and performance theory, in order to stage a reflective encounter with Chantal Akerman’s recent installation, Marcher à côté de ses lacets dans un frigidaire vide (To Walk Beside One’s Shoelaces in an Empty Fridge, 2004). It ultimately argues that engaging with a phenomenology of the ephemeral may act as a corrective balance to the narrativizing and canon-building tendencies in recent film criticism of Akerman’s work.