| Errant Behaviors was created as a video and
sound installation for an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum
in Houston (2004) by artist Anne
Wilson. I collaborated with Anne, creating the sound portion
of the installation.
The installation is comprised of two 8.5' wide DVD projections on opposing
walls of a 24' square gallery, and two stereo soundtracks. Although
not synchronized, DVD1 and DVD2 play at the same time and continuously
-- the play order is shuffled and there is no beginning or end. Each
image/sound segment in DVD1 was conceived to play in relationship to
each image/sound segment in DVD2.
Errant Behaviors emerges out of Anne Wilson’s work Topologies,
a sculpture first shown in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. The idea of working
with moving images came directly from the kinds of viewer responses
to Topologies -- projections of sci-fi scenarios, odd cityscapes, and
futuristic worlds. In Errant Behaviors, the latent associations and
meanings of Topologies are emphasized, enlivened, and acted out.
There is a relationship between humor and a darker aspect to the content
in Errant Behaviors, evolving ideas about quirky growth, sometimes playful
and sometimes sinister-seeming relationships, rude actions, repetitions
and accumulations. The behaviors of Errant Behaviors have to do with
aspects of impropriety, aggression and accident.
The sound compositions (Shawn Decker’s contribution to the collaboration)
utilizes both processed recorded and found sounds to create environments
of sonic activity that mirror the behavior of the visual images. The
sound in some segments has a singular presence; other segments have
a more cinematic presentation; some employ partially synchronized sound
within a sonic environment. There is consideration throughout of the
relationships between natural, human, and synthetic rhythms. The sound,
played through four loudspeakers (2 for each DVD) intermingles, creating
a single aural environment and drawing the two DVD projections together
– often in interesting and odd ways.
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