Vertical Roll

Vertical Roll (1972) is a feature film. Top cast includes Joan Jonas. The plot follows a central conflict that grows in scope as the film progresses.

Actor: Joan Jonas • Provider: Prime Video

Cast as an “electronic erotic seductress,” the multiple costumes and roles performed by Jonas critically examine the ever-changing, but consistently unequal roles of women. The camera gazes at Jonas, implicating the viewer in the work and further, with her body. Her intentional de-synchronization of the monitor's receiving and transmitting frequencies results in the on-screen image's repeated vertical descent. Creating a sense of fragmentation, the vertical roll relentlessly pounds at the images of the artist as she moves through a series of performed identities. Characterized a "disjunctive self portrait" by the Electronic Arts Intermix, the image content of the work is strongly mediated by the mirror-like function of the camera, scrutinized by the lens and subjected to violence by the vertical roll.