dpwolf/blog

I recently saw the World Rush_4 Artists exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria and was particularly impressed with Doug Aitken’s work Interiors, a multi screen video installation. KultureFlash has an interview with Aitken by Andreas Leventis and a nice picture of the installation. The viewer is surrounded by three large projection screens each portraying a different character in a vastly different location. Sound plays a big part as each visual source has an accompanying speaker playing the ambient sounds of the location. The three channels are tightly edited together so that the whole piece moves from being slow, reflective and almost tranquil to a rapid cacophony as a worker in a helicopter factory breaks into tapdancing, a young woman plays hand ball, Andre 3000 from the amazing hip hop duo Outkast breaks into rap and a Japanese business man grunts and moans in a kind of vocal percussion. While there are only three screens, there are four ‘channels’ of video each with a different character so the work repeats, each time with a different combination of sources on different screens. This was the coolest part, since each of the channels was edited to fit with any of the other channels in terms of both audio and video, the work was fascinating to watch over and over as each new combination was played.

While my current (and near future) work is based on the single (small) screen of the computer, I think this multi screen approach could be implemented to interesting effect using multiple windows and frames. Unlike a large scale video installation like Interiors where the user is physically surrounded by the work, overwhelmed by which way to face, a computer screen base work could generate a similar affect as viewers are more inclined to sit closer to a computer screen and focus their attention on a particular part of the screen (of their choosing). A video work composed of multiple channels on the one screen, generated and assembled randomly or by algorithm as it plays it may produce an interesting, similar effect.

Another 3-screen video work featured in the exhibiiton was The House by Eija-Liisa Ahtila. Rather than contrasting different locations, each at a perpendicular orientation like Aitken’s work, in The House Ahtila uses the two extra screens at the sides of the main screen to extend the screen space. While the middle screen may focus on a woman sitting in a room, the others look out the windows and doors.