A.D.D.G.
Video
Video
| Let's, 2008, HD video, Edition of 5 + 2AP, 4 minutes, 7 seconds |
| Ladder to Heaven, 2008, HD video, Edition of 5 + 2AP, 2 minutes, 26 seconds |
| conspirar, 2008, HD video, Edition of 5 + 2AP, 2 minutes, 2 seconds |
| nimbus, 2008, HD video, Edition of 5 + 2AP, 4 minutes, 14 seconds |
| babel, 2008, HD video, Edition of 5 + 2AP, 2 minutes, 36 seconds |
A.D.D.G. VIDEO
The videos are all based on individual works I’ve made or exhibited in the last year – three works on paper exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
as part of the MOCA Focus series – and two sculptures. As I ‘say’ this, I want to make clear that the videos should stand on their own.
They are all at some level experiments in contrasting spoken word with “written” texts. How do we perceive language given different visual and verbal cues?
Several of the soundtracks are part of a “Guide-by-Cell” project I did for the MOCA show, in collaboration with the theatre director Dan Rothenberg. The actors
include Michael Joyce and me. I have reappropriated both the imagery and the soundscapes, as it were. All texts are the original works for each piece given me
by Michael Joyce, edited and interpreted to suit the video piece.
BABEL
The painting “babel” is a large work on paper measuring about 22 feet wide – it is a panorama of language, a language-scape. The text is a selection read from
Michael Joyce’s “was,” a so-called novel that crossed the globe investigating intimate exchanges between people.
The visual effect used in this piece chooses a point in the image and samples the colors around it and projects them out in a series of rings. The circle motif unites
the urban, gritty, cycling wordscape. Voices are also edited to be echoing and cylcal, gaining intensity until the readers sputters and peters out.
CONSPIRAR
Michael joyce and I use the word sonspire to describe our collaboration more often than collaborate. It comes from the Latin to “breathe together” rather than to
“work together.” I don’t work on his written pieces, and he doesn’t work on my art works.
Conspirar is dedicated to the great writer and theorist Hélène Cixous, who I’ve had the privilege to read and know over the years. In this painting, as in this video,
she is the subject.
The color purple was chosen to represent Hélène as it is strong, and both powerfully feminine and masculine (in a Catholic sense, I once told Helene, to her
amusement).
While editing this piece, I asked myself, what is the one thing I would never do? And that answer was to put printed text layered on top of one of my works.
But as the painting seems to flake and decompose into a digital pattern, the printed text, the text-over seemed to have the same blocky pattern.
LADDER TO HEAVEN
The subject of this video is a neon work that reads, in Spanish: “Where is the ladder to heaven?”
The ladder to heaven was a theme of the series of works I showed at MOCA, and also one in Michael’s text’s (as we paid homage to Cixous and other modernist
writers such as James Joyce).
Some of the effects of this piece happened in camera. The neon oscillates at a different rate than the frame rate of the camera, and as a result the image of the
sculpture shifted in color. I pushed the digital images to the point of corruption: showing the nuts and bolts of the sculpture as well as the “material” that the video
is made of.
Similarly the sound is corrupted – Michael’s readings are run through a program where voices are changed from one gender to another.
LET’S
The text of “let’s” was meant as a commentary on collaboration: when you say let’s do something to someone, you are not really asking them. The imperative is
implied.
The text is repeated three times in this piece, each time revealing more of a series of images. My intention was, in the most didactic of the approaches to video
shown here, to show how our seeing words and information determines how we listen.
NIMBUS
“nimbus” is based on a kinetic wire sculpture shown at both MOCA last year and the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore this year. The sculpture is made of silver
wire filigree and casts a shadow of the words and their motion on the floor or wall. The video captures the forms of the wire web. The accompanying sounds are
the texts – the words woven in wire – whispered.
The videos are all based on individual works I’ve made or exhibited in the last year – three works on paper exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
as part of the MOCA Focus series – and two sculptures. As I ‘say’ this, I want to make clear that the videos should stand on their own.
They are all at some level experiments in contrasting spoken word with “written” texts. How do we perceive language given different visual and verbal cues?
Several of the soundtracks are part of a “Guide-by-Cell” project I did for the MOCA show, in collaboration with the theatre director Dan Rothenberg. The actors
include Michael Joyce and me. I have reappropriated both the imagery and the soundscapes, as it were. All texts are the original works for each piece given me
by Michael Joyce, edited and interpreted to suit the video piece.
BABEL
The painting “babel” is a large work on paper measuring about 22 feet wide – it is a panorama of language, a language-scape. The text is a selection read from
Michael Joyce’s “was,” a so-called novel that crossed the globe investigating intimate exchanges between people.
The visual effect used in this piece chooses a point in the image and samples the colors around it and projects them out in a series of rings. The circle motif unites
the urban, gritty, cycling wordscape. Voices are also edited to be echoing and cylcal, gaining intensity until the readers sputters and peters out.
CONSPIRAR
Michael joyce and I use the word sonspire to describe our collaboration more often than collaborate. It comes from the Latin to “breathe together” rather than to
“work together.” I don’t work on his written pieces, and he doesn’t work on my art works.
Conspirar is dedicated to the great writer and theorist Hélène Cixous, who I’ve had the privilege to read and know over the years. In this painting, as in this video,
she is the subject.
The color purple was chosen to represent Hélène as it is strong, and both powerfully feminine and masculine (in a Catholic sense, I once told Helene, to her
amusement).
While editing this piece, I asked myself, what is the one thing I would never do? And that answer was to put printed text layered on top of one of my works.
But as the painting seems to flake and decompose into a digital pattern, the printed text, the text-over seemed to have the same blocky pattern.
LADDER TO HEAVEN
The subject of this video is a neon work that reads, in Spanish: “Where is the ladder to heaven?”
The ladder to heaven was a theme of the series of works I showed at MOCA, and also one in Michael’s text’s (as we paid homage to Cixous and other modernist
writers such as James Joyce).
Some of the effects of this piece happened in camera. The neon oscillates at a different rate than the frame rate of the camera, and as a result the image of the
sculpture shifted in color. I pushed the digital images to the point of corruption: showing the nuts and bolts of the sculpture as well as the “material” that the video
is made of.
Similarly the sound is corrupted – Michael’s readings are run through a program where voices are changed from one gender to another.
LET’S
The text of “let’s” was meant as a commentary on collaboration: when you say let’s do something to someone, you are not really asking them. The imperative is
implied.
The text is repeated three times in this piece, each time revealing more of a series of images. My intention was, in the most didactic of the approaches to video
shown here, to show how our seeing words and information determines how we listen.
NIMBUS
“nimbus” is based on a kinetic wire sculpture shown at both MOCA last year and the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore this year. The sculpture is made of silver
wire filigree and casts a shadow of the words and their motion on the floor or wall. The video captures the forms of the wire web. The accompanying sounds are
the texts – the words woven in wire – whispered.