MISSISSIPPI RIVER FUGUES - 2008
Mississippi River Fugues In his Musices poeticae praeceptiones of 1613, Johannes Nucius defined a fugue as “the frequent and definite recurrence of the same theme in various parts which follow each other in spaced entrances.” RIVER FUGUES is a series of individually unique site-specific installations which uses this musical structure as the vehicle for editing and weaving together the disparate visual and audio components collected through years of research exploring the interdependency of people, industry and river waters in post-industrial cities. Mississippi River Fugues, the most recent River Fugue, is a site-specific installation created for a solo exhibition on view now at the Art Museum of the University of Memphis through November 1, 2008. Framing the main installation, the viewer walks through the entry space of the museum surrounded by voices of cotton farmers, river guides, levee supervisors and others telling their stories by the light of candles seen lit on the screens of portable dvd players embedded within hurricane lanterns suspended throughout the space. The larger component of Mississippi River Fugues was inspired by the discovery of an 18th century drawing showing an early concept of a "machine dredger" powered by men in squirrel wheel cages, an image which lodged in my mind as a symbol of our Sisyphean efforts to control nature, and in turn the mighty Mississippi. Propelled by this absurd invention, Mississippi River Fugues became an installation taking the viewer into a darkened museum gallery where, dwarfed by giant squirrel wheels and buoys, one's experience is akin to being in the river instead of on its banks. Inside the giant wheels (standing 15 and 20 feet high), are video projections of a man running endlessly on a treadmill, seemingly powering the movement of the wheel as he runs. Instead of beacons of light, each of the five buoys (6 to 14 feet high) houses a video projector in the top section which, while oscillating 90 degrees, throws video images across the surrounding walls. The five video projections weave together to form a visual fugue exploring the haunting history, poignant beauty and delicate balance found in the interdependence of the lives of people in the Delta, the cotton industry and the Mississippi River. SELECTED ESSAYS AND REVIEWS: |