Emotions broken down into paper, prayers
"Dear God, thank you for all your blessings and please help the people in Louisiana and Mississippi. If you have any time left over to help me, I would greatly appreciate it."
A simple prayer printed on a tiny scrap of thermal paper, it's just one of thousands that have been trickling down from ceiling to floor ever since the current exhibition "Text Memory," two full-room installations by two San Francisco Bay-area artists, opened at Wood Street Galleries, Downtown, on April 25.
Comprised of three printers mounted to the ceiling, each wired to the Internet, the installation piece "Want (continuous)" by Mark Scheeff is about our unceasing desires for such things as love, health, possessions and security.
The work collects information from three online databases: one of posted personal ads, the second of patients seeking organs for transplant and the third of posted prayers. Every 20 seconds, one piece of data is selected from each of the three databases, printed onto a small slip of paper, and released from the ceiling to fall to the floor below.
Scheeff says that, "Much like our desires, the three slips of paper are bright, attractive and elusive for the few seconds they pass in front of us. And then they are mostly gone, merged with one of the ever-growing piles on the floor."
By now, the paper slips have covered the floor to the point of overflowing the gallery. Visitors are free to read or even take the slips of paper, says curator Murray Horne.
"There are literally thousands of them here," Horne says, adding that "They're beautiful the way they flutter to the floor, and when you read them you realize that they are very emotionally charged."
The second installation on display also is emotionally charged. Titled "The Last Days in the Beginning of March," it was created by Jim Campbell, who had a one-man show at Wood Street Galleries five years ago.
With the piece, Campbell has re-created through sound, light and text the last day of his brother's life. However, Campbell gives no explanation as to how his brother died. He has created an immersive experience that successfully attempts to fabricate the reality of that day.
The gallery ceiling is adorned with 30 custom-made lights that create rhythmic light patterns on the floor and each pool of light is monitored to reflect the pulse of a previously recorded event. The fluctuating light sequence is complimented with wall text displayed on tiny light boxes that define specific events throughout the day, such as driving, vomiting, convulsing, etc., providing a narrative framework that is jarring to say the least. The effect is heightened by a soundtrack of previously recorded rainfall.
"The rain is the sound outside and the text represents the internal thoughts and experiences," Horne says.
Through all of these combined elements Campbell has created a surprisingly visceral experience -- one that may make it impossible not to think of one's own last day and how it might play out.
What is most compelling about this exhibition is that both installations use illumination and text to create visually jarring imagery while engaging the varying notions of memory, desire and reality.
The fluttering rain of paper in Scheeff's piece "Want (continuous)" accumulates throughout the duration of the exhibit and slowly fills the space with traces of how life could be different, while in Campbell's piece a poetic blend of reality and fiction merge to aid in chronicling the last days in someone's life.
Together they offer an experience that should not be missed. And because it will be on view nearly until the end of the Three Rivers Arts Festival, there is no excuse not to.
Additional Information:
'Text Memory'
What: Two new installations by two San Francisco Bay-area artists
When: Through June 21. Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays
Where: Wood Street Galleries, 601 Wood St. (above the Wood Street 'T' Station), Downtown
Admission: Free
Details: 412-471-5605
