The Time Surgeon
The Time Surgeon
The Time Surgeon
By Nathaniel Mellors
The Time Surgeon
The Time Surgeon
The Time Surgeon
In The Time Surgeon, Nathaniel Mellors brings together several areas that fascinate him: science fiction, religion, history, absurdism and humour. This two-channel video installation depicts the story of The Time Surgeon, who sends an anonymous victim (‘Victim’) back and forth through time, using the rewind and fast-forward buttons of his Sony cassette recorder. The victim eventually manages to confuse The Time Surgeon through the use of incoherent language, and thus manages to escape. This multimedia installation is about the power of language: how adequately can language reflect our reality? How can you exercise language control? Mellors applies this factor mainly to themes such as religion and the great ideologies, to create theatrical, comic-absurdist scenes in which the spirits of Beckett and Monty Python are never far away.