Stan Douglas

In Win, Place or Show we see the complex relationship of two working-class men who share an apartment. They talk about the news and a certain betting game. Gradually the conversation turns into an argument and the men become involved in a fight. Then the entire story starts, as in a loop, all over again. Due to the many camera vantage points and the use of a computer program that can present the images in more than 20,000 different combinations, each version of the conversation is nonetheless slightly different. Douglas was inspired by a popular Canadian television program from the 1960s. The decor for the flat is based on (unrealized) constructiondrawings from the 1950s for residential blocks for unmarried men, designed for the Strathcona neighborhood of Vancouver. Because the image has been divided into two parts, an alienating effect is created. The left and the right halves of the image are not synchonized and show the events from different perspectives. As such Win, Place or Show disrupts our viewing behavior that has been conditioned by the media and comments on the old utopias of social housing programs.