Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA), 75 3rd Street, now redeveloped

Linda Montano, Handcuff: Linda Montano and Tom Marioni (2nd-5th November 1973)

Description

For three days Tom Marioni and I were handcuffed together. For ten minutes each day we made a video document of the event. The time together became a study in movement and mutual signaling. (Montano 1981, pages unnumbered)

Linda Montano came to me with the idea that she and I would be handcuffed together for three days. It was her work, and I was a participant in the piece. At the opening we showed a video that was half an hour long. Videotapes were reel to reel in those days and thirty minutes long. I had a video recorder that was like a big trunk, and sometime during each day or evening I would turn the camera on and record ten minutes straight without stopping. One day we ate dinner during a ten-minute segment. In another segment we walked around. We were doing normal things that anyone would do, but we could only show things we did in MOCA because the video recorder was so heavy. The video was just to get a record of some of our activities. It wasn’t the point of the piece. While we were handcuffed, we rode on the bus, went out to eat, went to the movies, went to the hardware store, in other words had a life. (Marioni 2003: 106)