Balcony
The video was made after revisiting a public space, the Saint Paul Orpheum Theater, from my youth, long closed because of financial reasons. The building emerged as an island surrounded by a world progressing faster, and forgotten by the strong cultural and economic changes nearby. The building had a special atmosphere and an intense beauty in its crumbling plaster and torn wide screen projection fabric hanging from vaudeville riggings on the stage. It seemed sad, had a subdued air about it and its disuse meant was as thou a gateway to the future was coming off its hinges. I looked to document traces of a way of life that is no more in a place where it appeared time had stood still. Balcony merged video and photographs with a few old film clips selected to engage the idea of the Balcony and upward downward movement such slow pans from the balcony to the main floor of the theater. In 2009, audio was added and collaged recording from an upright piano in my studio in Northeast Minneapolis of Johann Sebastian Bach Gould Variations. These works referenced Glenn Gould’s music in the 1972 film, Slaughterhouse Five done shortly before his death and the closing of the theater. The original sound was co produced with Drew Gordon (who passed away several years after the work was screened in 2000). By doing this and revisiting the work, I have given agency to a talent that has lain dormant (Drew Gordon, Glenn Gould, a disused building and my own musical desires).
4:00 Single channel video and audio in a continuous loop.
Variable
2004-07 |
