Double Split (Mac Adams, 1978)

Using photography as a means of production, Mac Adams combines conceptual art with storytelling to create photographs from his stories and stories from his photographs. “Double Split” is a triptych that composes a three-part sequence out of a crime incident, visually recording the passage of time concerning the event. The uncanny behaviours of the man carrying something like a baseball bat in his hand and the woman lying motionless on the side of the road in the next sequence draw our attention to what is going on in order to solve the mystery. Shadows and natural light, tree trunks, and the bend in the road are illusive encounters in a suspended narrative constructed by the viewer. These three intertwined sequences follow one another like the images in a photo-novel, or like the succession of still images to produce the moving image in a film. At the same time, “Double Split”is caught in a loop; it is plunged in uncertainty, with neither beginning nor end.