Summer reading: "Shadow Player: the provocations of Paul Chan"

"There are six projections in the title series, each soundless and lasting fourteen minutes; a seventh takes the form of abstract drawings on music manuscript paper. They all begin with a flood of warm colors, reds and yellows, which gradually give way to black, silhouetted images. In '1st Light,' the initial images include a telephone pole, overhead wires, and flocks of birds; into this space, a minute later, small objects slowly rise - cell phones, eyeglasses, folding chairs, an iPod - defying gravity and breaking apart. Larger objects float up: a police car, a bicycle, and then, shockingly, a body hurtles downward. More human figures fall, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs or groups, travelling much faster than the rising objects, until color returns in washes of deep blue and violet and the cycle begins anew.
One thinks inevitably of September 11th. Also the Apocalypse and the Rapture, but with a twist - God welcoming our consumer goods while sending us to the Other Place. When I asked Chan about this, he grinned and said, 'Given that what I like is to turn things upside down, I thought it might be more interesting if Jesus didn't take anyone, but only took our favorite things."

"Shadow Player: The provocations of Paul Chan" by Calvin Tomkins in The New Yorker