Vito Acconci: Centers

In Centers, Vito Acconci faces the camera head-on, attempting to keep his finger directed at the exact center of the screen, which displays his own image. In pointing at himself, the artist also points at the viewer, creating a tension between the two. Of the film, Acconci wrote, “The result (the TV image) turns the activity around: a pointing away from myself, at an outside viewer—I end up widening my focus onto passing viewers (I’m looking straight out by looking straight in).” Acconci started his career in the 1960s as a poet. By the end of the decade, he was a leading figure in the fields of performance, sound, and video art.