I Couldn’t Agree with You More, 1999

I Couldn’t Agree With You More depicts a woman (portrayed by Rist) wearing an indifferent expression as she wanders through aisles of a supermarket and a high-rise apartment. A second projection, layered on the figure’s forehead, unveils the contents of her subconscious: nude figures in a forest-like setting playing, running, and hiding behind foliage. By layering the video footage, Rist suggests that inside, we are still wild creatures, while on the outside we behave as if grocery stores—and credit cards and packaged food and skyscrapers and all of the rules dictating social interactions—is natural and normal. For Rist, one of an artist’s central tasks is to refuse to accept social conventions as hard and cold facts, and instead to perceive the utter strangeness of the world we have built, the customs we have adopted, and the masks we wear.