In 2013, Daniel Fish brought together actors Christina Rouner and Thomas Jay Ryan, to recreate, in video, the last scene of the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), by Michel Gondry. Instead of the back and forth alternating shots, we see, simultaneously, the faces of both actors, one on each separate screen. Fish suggested they should repeat Joel and Clementine’s lines for two hours, in a sort of open rehearsal (to the audience and to experimentation). Rouner and Ryan compose variations on the same topic – the lines of a couple that is about to break up. They try different tones, expressions, movements, in a loop that is constantly being changed. Fish’s creation recovers the motto of Gondry’s film. The miraculous offer to erase memories – creating spotless minds –, which would allow a new beginning, is transformed into the repetition of a single moment, the possibility of a new attempt. Eternal is the result of those creative efforts, a game between two actors.

Read more about Daniel Fish here.