DV 1 min. 22 sec. colour, stereo sound, Digital Video
5 AM is the precursor to Equestrian (2003). It was shown for the first time at the Cineboards Festival in Rotterdam, 2002 as an outdoor video installation commenting on moving image in public space, and an observation on camera surveillance.
Van Bakel found an empty square and gave it a virtual statue of a policewoman on horseback. With a kind of inventiveness that would have made Muybridge proud, he makes the cameras, the equestrian statue and the urban decor swarm all around one another. The sound of shod hooves on the pavement completes the effect of a quick succession of dissolves. In the year 2002, digital technology apparently even allowed an artist to let horse and rider float permanently. You can see it happening, but that photographic images show the indisputable truth is something of the past.
Collection: Netherlands Media Art Institute, eye Film Institute
