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ludo
by Gitte Villesen
Tre gange Ludo (Three
Times Ludo) (duration 4, 6 and 8 min.) The work consists of three
videos of myself playing Ludo with two older men and a young one.
The camera is aimed at my opponents. Once in a while you’ll
see the board, or my hands moving my pieces, or throwing the dice.
I decided to look up the same people l had worked with earlier,
and ask them if they wanted to play Ludo in front of the camera.
I had remained in contact with Helge and Willy, so it was no problem
to arrange a game of Ludo with them. The young one on the other
hand had disappeared into the crowd at Vorbasse Horse Fair and Market.
I managed though to get in contact with him through a couple of
articles in some local newspapers. After the second article Martin
(which turned out to be his name) called me laughing and said “Hey,
you just found the guy you were looking for!”. In each of the
videos we play two games of Ludo and talk a bit afterwards. Ludo
1 Helge and I met in his lunchroom at the academy. While playing
we continued our talk from last time, about his hometown, and especially
about his family. He lost the first game and won the second. Ludo
2 I wrote Willy a postcard that I would come by with a video camera,
knowing that I could show up anytime I wanted. He didn’t have
much succes with the Ludo. He lost both games and it didn’t
please him. After the games he tried to convince me that he was
letting me win only to be nice and friendly toward the weaker sex.
Ludo 3 Martin came by my place to play Ludo. He took a day off from
work, and because he found it more fun to come to Copenhagen than
having me come to Jutland, I paid for his plane ticket. We had only
met once, for 10 minutes, with a video camera between us, and that
was nearly a year before. After I picked him up at the airport,
we watched the video I recorded at Vorbasse Horse Fair and Market
(which he’d never seen), and then we played Ludo. He won the
first game, I won the second. It ended up being quite important
for both of us to win, and at the end of the second game we were
totally even for a while, at which point we stopped talking and
concentrated on the game. After the Ludo we went down to the harbour
to have a few beers, to talk, and to film some more. His friends
were calling him on his mobile phone asking how the Ludo went. Apart
from the three videos which were showed seperately, the exhibition
included a photo of each of the three men and the two articles I
used in my search for Martin.
Originally published
in: Wiener Secession Catalogue, Gitte Villesen, 1999ISBN 3-901926-08-9
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