Six Million
Computer controlled Projection
Date: 2002

In this artwork a single murder from the movie Schindler's List is played continuously six million times. After ever replay of the scene a computer counts from 1 all the way up to 6,000000. To reach 6,000,000 the computer will have to run continuously for over two years.

All modes of representation have their restrictions. As an artist working with images of the Holocaust I am both deeply aware of these restrictions and also anxious to make them explicit. For "the question arises as to whether there are any limits on the kind of story that can be responsibly emplotted in any of the modes, symbols, plot types, and genres our culture provides for making sense of such extreme events in our pasts"(1).

Many artists aware of the restrictions inherent in these culturally and conventionally acceptable means of representation have attempted to experiment with new forms as a way to address the horrors of the Holocaust.

The movie Schindler's List is an important one in that it attempts to transcend film and become historical document.

"We're not making a film we are making a document"—Steven Spielberg, Time Magazine (2).

However at the same time as trying to transcend film it also uses many of the conventions of Hollywood in order to get it's message over.

This piece attempts to focus in on some of those conventions as a way of returning us again to both the responsibilities and impossibilities of representing the Holocaust.

(1)Hayden White, 'Historical Emplottment and the Problem of Truth', in Saul Friedlander (ed)., 'Probing the Limits of Representation'.
(2) Cited in Phillip Gronrevitch, ' A Dissent on Schindler's List', in Commentary,p.52

With thanks to Michael Murdza for his programming help and Thomas Richmond whose essay "Representational Modes and Narrative Structure in Schindler's List" provided the initial impetus for this project.