‘When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see’

The blink of an eye is among the quickest of anatomical movements: the lids descend and rise without challenging the persistence of vision. Slow this motion down considerably, though, and that briefest of disruptions to visual perception becomes more remarkable. This is precisely what Douglas Gordon does in his installation Phantom (2011), which features a human eye, filmed in close-up and in extreme slow motion, looking out from a screen that bisects the stage on which it is positioned and illuminates the darkened room. The eye is at once familiar and strange: it is heavily kohl-rimmed with thick false lashes, moving but only just, appearing as a black oval that opens and closes within alabaster skin. Occasionally, a tear wells, swirls, and rolls around and down: the darkness of the eye and the room is that of intense sadness, which the plaintive music of a male voice and piano fuels and palliates. The voice and piano playing are those of musician Rufus Wainwright, Gordon's collaborator on this piece and the person to whom the made-up eye belongs. The music is from the album All Days are Nights, released after the death of his mother, and the sorrow is caused by grief. Wainwright borrows the album title from Shakespeare's ‘Sonnet 43’ in which days are nights in the absence of seeing his love, whereas nights become days when his love appears in his dreams.