Yesterday, I had a chance to view a unique form of contemporary art, its called Installation Art. With a friend in tow, we visited the Charleston Heights Art Center here in Las Vegas. The exhibit is called "Intention To Leave" by Robin Starbuck.
Installation art according to Wikipedia.org, uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way a particular space is experienced. Installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery spaces and can be any material intervention in everyday public or private spaces. Installation art incorporates almost any media to create an experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, computers and the internet. Some installations are site-specific in that they are designed to only exist in the space for which they were created.
"Intention to Leave" is a two chapter video projection. Chapter one includes live footages and digital animation of a frozen island landscape that seemingly represents a world uncorrupted by the human hand and so somehow not quite earthly. As the video progresses, a dark city arises from the sea. The city, and the mechanical sound of its emergence imply the catastrophic menace of mankind to the tranquility of the land.
In chapter two, the branding and castration of buffalo is preseded by the buffalo shaman tumbling through space. He is accompanied by the chanting of a Vajra Guru mantra. According to the artist's statement, this Tibetan mantra is meant to represent all of the twelve blessings of the Buddhist way. It's repeated recitation is meant to remove completely emotional corruption and to affect liberation from misdeeds causing rebirth and hampering the path to enlightenment. In this chapter, the mantra is sung both normally and in reverse. In this way, according to the artist, it becomes both a prayer and suspicion of prayer. The meaning of the video is then open to the viewers. Sins or misdeeds are either being removed from the suffering animals, represented by the castrations of the buffalos, or from humans or somehow the message is being inverted entirely.
Installation art according to Wikipedia.org, uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way a particular space is experienced. Installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery spaces and can be any material intervention in everyday public or private spaces. Installation art incorporates almost any media to create an experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, computers and the internet. Some installations are site-specific in that they are designed to only exist in the space for which they were created.
"Intention to Leave" is a two chapter video projection. Chapter one includes live footages and digital animation of a frozen island landscape that seemingly represents a world uncorrupted by the human hand and so somehow not quite earthly. As the video progresses, a dark city arises from the sea. The city, and the mechanical sound of its emergence imply the catastrophic menace of mankind to the tranquility of the land.
In chapter two, the branding and castration of buffalo is preseded by the buffalo shaman tumbling through space. He is accompanied by the chanting of a Vajra Guru mantra. According to the artist's statement, this Tibetan mantra is meant to represent all of the twelve blessings of the Buddhist way. It's repeated recitation is meant to remove completely emotional corruption and to affect liberation from misdeeds causing rebirth and hampering the path to enlightenment. In this chapter, the mantra is sung both normally and in reverse. In this way, according to the artist, it becomes both a prayer and suspicion of prayer. The meaning of the video is then open to the viewers. Sins or misdeeds are either being removed from the suffering animals, represented by the castrations of the buffalos, or from humans or somehow the message is being inverted entirely.
On the walls of the gallery space are graphic images of radio waves. These are pattern replicas of radio waves captured from outer space. To this day the government maintains dozens of laboratories where radio waves or "messages" from outer space are captured and analyzed.
According to the artist, this exhibition, "Intention to Leave"is intended as a poem of warning. It is a speculation on the condition that humanities relationship to the earth and a suggestion that we humans may possibly be mere visitors to this planet; a planet we found, inhabited and seeking to destroy before the day we leave to find another. What suffers at our hands; the land, other creatures, water tables, and air quality, mean little to us. Unless we engage in magical transformation once radio contact is made, we humans will be gone.
This exhibition is a multimedia/digital presentation about the cycle of life and death and the sources of imagery are as diverse as cattle ranching to warfare combined with Buddhist chants and overlaid narration.
As I watched the presentation, I did not know what the artist intended to convey. Fortunately, the artist statement distributed before you enter the gallery helped a lot in understanding the whole thing. This kind of contemporary art is more interesting because it would involve the use of all your senses in order to understand and appreciate the artist's message. I'm looking forward to see and experience more of this interesting art form.
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