Ambient Poem

 

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This video text installation was rear projected in a hallway onto four free-hanging scrims that fluttered in the wake of viewers’ passage. The “poem” was composed from a bank of short phrases collected over several months. These phrases were arranged, tweaked to flow grammatically and phonetically, then presented in a four-minute looping video with a pacing that mimicked spoken language.

Ambient Poem was an exploration of visual, textual, aural, spatial relationships. Using “found” text and adopting a readymade strategy, the meanings of the words and phrases acquired new interstitial meanings – that is, they took on new meanings by virtue of their relationship with the other phrases, their projected presentation, and their pacing. The length of the piece was designed to be longer than a typical viewer would stand watching it. In this way, the experience and meaning of the piece was additionally individualized to each viewer.

Text:

we are all casualties

the enemy is us

it is so easy/to create a ghost

autumn light slung low

an initial phase of revolt

framing discourse of desire



truth is tenuous at best

self-contained apparatus of reproduction

narcissistic mirage of technique

energy from its own reflection



the inverse is also true

proving art by anti-art

the system is weightless

deprived of symbolic substance



I run wildly in my dreams




naked I am riding/on a naked horse

in the moon's light

i wash myself in silence

i feel the depth of night

i listen to the blood

pounding in my ears




night and once agan

I want to sleep

on a floating river

no sky no earth

melting sun and rain



drip drop of water

i no longer hear

the sound of tears falling

i no longer hear



brute existence defines us

mountain and climber inseparable

indifferent and shifting configuration

operation of the code


we are here together

we are here alone

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