Spatial Montage, Temporal Collage, and the Art(ifice) of Rear Projection

Film may be classified as a temporal art, but many artists have subjected it to deconstructive maneuvers aimed at revealing the spatial dynamics operative within it. In the art practices at issue here, the way space is foregrounded has taken many forms, due in part to artists’ attempts to reveal the sophisticated spatial constructions of interior and exterior realms in Hitchcock’s films. One of the most prevalent, however, involves the creation of spatial montage. At its simplest, spatial montage describes the juxtaposition of more than one image within a frame.1 What constitutes a frame, however, can be subject to a great range of interpretation. It may describe the edge of a screen onto which multiple images are projected. It may also describe the outermost edges of a series of monitors stacked on top of one another or placed in a row. It may even describe the physical limits of an installation.