As the roomful of voices rose and lowered, overlapped, and occasionally fell silent, it sounded like a séance was being performed in the dark Brehmer Theater on Friday night. A packed theater of students as well as faculty, staff, and community members read separate lines as they floated across the divided screen on the stage. “All has been said so far,” began part of the group. “So far,” echoed others.
Seated at a café table on the stage, artist Ann Hamilton and poet/literary critic Susan Stewart listened. “We’re going to animate time together,” Hamilton had told the audience members, who were given different colored dots that would indicate which part of the screen they read. “I have always wanted to do an experiment where people read together,” explained Hamilton. She had prepared the three-part reading by crossing Keats’s “This Living Hand” poem with fragments from Stewart’s book Poetry and the Fate of the Senses.
The event, which began with an informal conversation between collaborators Hamilton and Stewart, launched Hamilton’s Recto/Verso exhibitions at both the Picker and Clifford art galleries, on view until April 6.
Hamilton is recognized internationally for her large-scale multimedia installations. The videos in Recto/Verso — a retrospective — combine repetitive motion with sound, often eliciting a visceral reaction from viewers. For example, Aleph is a close-up of stone marbles rolling around in a mouth, and the soundtrack is of the marbles scraping together.
The exhibition in the Clifford Gallery features two huge photographs by students who began working with Hamilton on a project called “i am camera” when she visited last September. Because she is also known as a master of low-tech image making, Hamilton suggested that students create pinhole cameras out of cardboard, aluminum foil, tape, and film. Students and staff then photographed various campus events and locations. The results were developed with the help of Professor Linn Underhill, who curated Hamilton’s exhibitions.
Returning to campus last week, Hamilton spoke about her work to approximately 150 students on Thursday night in Golden Auditorium, followed by dinner with some of the students.
“Ann’s work is strange — brilliant, but strange,” said Alex Coco ’12, an art and art history major. “She has an acute sensibility that is hard to understand unless you listen to her speak about her work. I learned how strange the simple is.”
Hamilton is the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Visiting Artist in Residence; these events are also supported by an NEA grant and the vlog Arts Council.