Trapped within a man is a man trapped, within a room is a man trapped, within a room is a man trapped within a man, trapped within a room is a man, trapped within a man, trapped in a room is a man within a man trapped, within a room is a man trapped within a man trapped within a room, trapped.
Rick Buckley's text, obviously reminiscent of Gertrude Stein's poetic serial repetitions, translates into another medium what the "middle man" is literally forced to repeat endlessly, trapped in a vice. A captured moment on video and a man trapped within the medium, i.e. the "man in the medium" or a portrait of the artist as a trapped man. Just like the bare cathode ray tube reveals its rudimentary form of a funnel, the vice (including its double meaning of “bad habit") incorporates the violence inherent in each layer, and in a broader sense in each selecting, cutting and framing of a continuity - presented, of course, not without British humour.
1 vice, I cathode ray tube, i video channel