Here we are, in a
watery Scandinavian afternoon from years ago, waiting for some
gleeful stranger to throw himself into a frozen lake. We, unseen
video-watchers of the internet, gawking from varied distances of time
and space through the transmuting eye of the camera, are expanding
our experience through a captured vista of yesterday. As we become a
society (and world) of fragmented, unconnected people, we can at
least have this experience of empathy by looking through the logged
video record. This icy weirdo at least seems happy to see us, running
up to the camera like it's an old friend. We are pulled into a
careful embrace, so his wide unguarded face, bright with amusement,
fills the screen. He foists a long silvery bottle of vodka, taking a
deep overhead pull and exhaling in blissful release after the frosty
sluice. His glance suggests everything is important, and that nothing
has ever had meaning. Suddenly he is in the distance, clad only in
dark underwear, trundling across a frozen lake: a flushed pink
manimal fool moving across the ice in an exaggerated bobble, the
kinetic body language possessing the mania of an old a silent film
actor. He writhes. He skates.
Cut to a world in
motion from his point of view: rosy feet below us clomping across
untouched snow with the muffled crunch and drag of body across
tundra. He takes us down into the rough, slushy water of the winter
coast, among the groaning echoes of marine pressure and the faint
teacup tinkling sound of floating debris. Shambling like an ape,
sliding in and out of watery holes, our hero is projected across
earth and ice in a frozen plank position like a human sled or
taxidermied seal. This hyperactive body is wordless, limited to
animal grunts and squeaks, no discernible purpose to his actions
except enactment of a spirit of primeval play. His wants and concerns
are giddy and inscrutable; he is a god of his arctic world, eternally
juvenile and impervious, bending and chopping and nibbling the
landscape around him like man possessed with fairy enchantment or
extra-terrestrial control.
Parading with a
garland of frozen lake water, grasping jellyfish in the sea, rubbing
himself with plants and mud, licking mushrooms, springing from
beneath inhospitable terrain, smashing ice over his head, shattering
tree and ground with industrial toys and vehicles wielded with a
wild, joyous hand, Tor Eckoff is a treasure of Youtube. A Norwegian
paint factory worker responsible for videos produced for a decade
under the name Apetor, he brings a unique style and consciousness to
his video diaries, which track his life through the seasons as he
experiences a solitary world in a specialized drunk clown style.
Eckoff's work is a record of escalating frolics that tap into a
world of unique rules and objectives, where time is disjointed and
repeating, where language is visual, wordless, and silly. The
frenetic journaling forms loose stories, often darting away into
flights of fancy or abrupt conclusions, but always builds on the
unique tradition Tor has created.
We see the true
beginnings of the distinctive Apetor style in the spring of 2007,
with a video of Tor making bug-eyed faces at the camera and walking
to a car to kiss and lick it intensely. In the fall of 2008, Eckoff
released the first installment of the On Thin Ice series, a
minute long video of Eckoff skating a frozen pond and falling through
into water, than slowly dragging himself out and sliding away on his
belly. Just a month later, with On Thin Ice 2, we see a more
successful combination of the two motifs, silly beast and impervious
cold swimmer themes intermingling. Eckoff's wide-eyed stare is there,
familiar and alien, contacting us through time and space. It's part
of the way Eckoff's videos exploit the power of empathy. There is
charm in the friendly way we are invited to share his humble life. We
lay down to sleep with him on the mountainside, peer through his
foggy windshield, and thrash around with him in his frozen backyard
tub. His happiness is contagious, and his world is without danger. He
presents a carnival of visceral sensory information to pull the
viewer into his world: static-like carve of skates, the trickling,
fuzzy bubbles as he peers from below the illuminated surface of ice,
the crushing pops of moving weight on snow, the sound of empty vodka
bottle rattling along the frozen surface of a lake like a dampened
bell: gifts from a faraway exporter of sublimity.
