SAPPHIRE & STEEL
2012
20 YouTube Videos & 1 set of seventeen 12-minute BetaMax Video Cassettes
SAPPHIRE & STEEL is NIGHTMARE CITY’s remake of an episode of the late 70s/early 80s British sci-fi/fantasy cult show Sapphire and Steel. Looking backwards and forwards through time, the remake layers a range of video technologies and means of reproduction from an analogue 1960s-era broadcast tv camera to the currently ubiquitous YouTube UI to obsolete BetaMax cassettes. The narrative is re-enacted by a group amateur actors who interchangeably represent the titular characters: two inter-dimensional time detectives. NIGHTMARE CITY portrays the remaining two characters simultaneously through a composite identity created in post-production. Layering footage of each of the Nightmares, ill-formed chimeric characters depict quixotic notions and misuse of time, space, technology, spiritualism and the supernatural — all while the re-made footage stutters, struggling to remain in-sync with the original audio track from the show.