During the past few years Arnold has become increasingly interested in making film work for a gallery context. As part of  this new direction, FACT is presenting three recently produced installations. Gallery 1 is transformed into an 80-seat cinema where Deanimated (The Invisible Ghost 1941) will be screened on an hourly basis. In this work, Arnold literally de-animates the original Hollywood b-movie by digitally erasing one character at a time. The increasingly empty scenarios, at times inhabited by actors whose facial expressions have been morphed and whose dialogue consequently appears to make less and less sense, emphasise the ghost-like effects initially intended in the original film.

Deanimated not only comments on the digital possibilities of rewriting existing filmic material and its potential new meanings, the title also refers to a certain extraction of the soul. In psychoanalytic terms the soul is also referred to as the anima. In a symbolic gesture it is here being carefully erased. In this regard Deanimated comments on the increasingly troubled relationship between what appears on the screen and the dialogue with the viewer as the characters with whom we identify gradually disappear from view.