Carrick Bell is part of Exposed 2011. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
Von hinten nach vorne, fehlerlos/Backwards, with no mistakes is a re-presentation of both versions of Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997/2007). At the climax of both films, one of two men taking a family hostage is shot by a captive; his accomplice finds a remote control, rewinds the action, averts the murder, and shoots the captive’s husband in revenge. This gesture functions as 
Haneke’s refusal to give the audience the satisfaction of a heroic reversal of fortune for the captives. Von hinten nach vorne, fehlerlos sets out to refuse this moment by reversing the scene, overturning Haneke’s insistence on doggedly following through on the initial impulse of the film. In both original films, the effect of Haneke’s reversal is to highlight, and exaggerate, the domineering ability of a director to impose his vision on an audience; Haneke assumes the audience’s identification with the captives leads them to desire one outcome (their release and survival), which he then offers, only to refuse.
Carrick Bell (b. 1981, Anchorage, Alaska) is a video artist based in Berlin. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008, and a BA from Hampshire College (Amherst, Massachusetts) in 2004. Bell has taught sculpture at Northwestern University (Chicago), and delivered lectures for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. His videos appropriate footage from sources ranging from B-movies to live-feeds of natural disasters, investigating nature as a site for man-on-man violence, as a site for abandonment (of self, social constraint, good taste, etc.), and as a site for the production of political narrative.
ABOUT EXPOSED
For the past twenty years, the Helen Day Art Center has hosted an outdoor public art and sculpture exhibition called Exposed in Stowe, Vermont. Exposed hosts sculptures, site-specific installations, and participatory work from twenty-three national and international artists. the 2011 edition offers a series of Thursday night events by 12 video artists, writers, performers, and musicians accompany the exhibit. This exhibition and series of events is accompanied by cell phone audio tours, QR codes, walking tour maps, walkabouts, and a catalogue of the exhibit published by Kasini House Books. The exhibition will take place July 8th to October 8th, 2011.