Recantorium, 2010
Interactive video installation
This interactive video foregrounds the human impulse to collect objects, and to imbue these collected things with personal meaning. Literally, a heap of objects belonging to local Houstonians – items that people value and keep for various reasons – accumulates or vanishes. Accompanying audio narratives relating to the special meanings these objects have for their owners are wound and rewound based on the viewer’s motion and proximity to the piece. When the viewer approaches, objects and stories build up; when the viewer retreats – or stands unwaveringly still – time flows backwards and the amassed collection disappears. Time, narrative and movement are conflated, and gallery visitors can literally “scrub” the work: using their bodies as an instrument to conduct the flow of time, as well as the stockpiling of material objects and their associated memories.
Programming for Recantorium by JS Rousseau from the Topological Media Lab
Presented as part of Ethnographic Terminalia, Barrister’s Gallery, New Orleans, 2010 and fotofest Houston, 2010.
Press and Reviews:
Campbell, C. “Terminus: Ethnographic Terminalia,” Visual Anthropology Review 27(1): 52-56, 2011
Hennessy, K. et al. “Ethnographic Terminalia 2010: New Orleans—27 Works,” Visual Anthropology Review 27(1): 57-74, 2011
Boyer, D. “A Gallery of Prototypes,” Visual Anthropology Review 27(1): 94-96, 2011