The Limejuice Mystery

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki
The Limejuice Mystery
Creator Solange Frankort
Year 2016
Bio Solange Frankort [NL], Rotterdam based artist, investigates and works within an array of everyday subjects within digital-pop-culture as reference, such as: computer symbols, digital devices, Internet, networks, archives. She uses digital or/and analogue objects to reflect on relationships between humans and the systems they create. Frankort’s work employs a peculiar blend of a little humour and visual aesthetics combined with conceptualism. Adding an unexpected perspective to these subjects, obtaining a perception from them, she creates a social dialogue about media and the digital age.
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Website http://solangefrankort.nl/

THE LIMEJUICE MYSTERY is a work in progress which concerns the ageing process and decay of a roll of nitrate film. After almost 80 years the film cannot function, because of its first stage in decay. It shows the research space where I investigate the unknown nitrate film, the struggle with the material, and its danger from 1940 until today. I gather different elements together that display how I work and engage with the material: the nitrate film that I found second hand; a vitrine with all the research material including Polaroids that I shot throughout the process (they represent a unique moment which I have limited control over); a documentation of the decay of the film; a documentation of the content of the nitrate film The Limejuice Mystery, a parody of a Sherlock Holmes story made in 1930)1; printed decay fragments on Plexiglas that form a landscape.


The Limejuice Mystery

Late at night in a district of London, in a dangerous Limehouse opium bar, an elegant woman was dancing near naked in sparkling clothing: forced to dance by the bar owner to entertain the guests. The customers danced along and played musical instruments. One of them was recording the dancing with his video camera. In their inebriation they begun a fight over the woman, and one of them pulled out a gun, and started to kill almost everyone in the bar. First the bartender, who tried to stop the mad man. Than the camera man, who recorded everything. Some customers had the chance to escape the massacre, but the woman was nowhere to be found. Nobody was dancing or playing musical instruments anymore, it was quiet in the Limehouse opium bar.

The police arrived at the crime scene, and they were shocked what they found. It was a mystery: what happened at bar? This was a job for Herlock Sholmes and the police called him to solve this puzzle. Who killed all these people, and what happened in the Limehouse opium bar? After a few minutes Herlock Sholmes made an appearance at the crime scene. He sent the police away, so he could take his time to investigate: look for evidence from the murder. Right away he saw the video camera on the floor. It was still on. He tried to rewind carefully the flammable recording and played it again. The first images were of a woman, dancing elegantly, and drunken customers around her playing music. Until one of the customers touched the dancing woman, which led to a huge fight between the intoxicated men.

Herlock was looking for any evidence of how the murder happened, until some tobacco from Herlock’s pipe fell on the film, and the film immediately caught fire.