Simon Fujiwara Likeness, 2018

Likeness is a sculptural video installation: a custom-made, life-sized wax figure of Anne Frank sits at a table decorated with personal objects to resemble the desk at which she wrote her famous diary. Painted to appear life-like, the figure is facing the viewers in a friendly and welcoming pose. Yet, visitors are kept from approaching the figure by a barrier. While such handrails protecting displays are familiar, the barrier for Likeness is intentionally placed at a significant distance (minimum seven meters), making it difficult to observe details of the presented scene. Monitors screen a two-channel looped 20 minutes video which was shoot of the figure with a camera held by a robotic arm: one video depicts close-up views of the wax figure at the desk in a choreographed sequence of camera movements, in a way animating the scene and providing the viewer with the proximity denied by the rail.