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I've always felt that there's
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this very strong connection for me,
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00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:25,000
between the thread of sewing
and the line of that thread
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00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:26,437
and the thread of writing.
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00:00:28,464 --> 00:00:33,678
(charcoal scraping across canvas)
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00:00:33,678 --> 00:00:35,480
(sewing machine)
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00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:38,480
I certainly grew up doing a
lot of hand work, needle work,
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00:00:38,480 --> 00:00:41,280
sewing, knitting, embroidery,
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00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:44,113
all of those traditional textile arts.
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00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:50,160
I think the process is just really satisfying,
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00:00:50,160 --> 00:00:52,240
but the metaphors that cloth offer up
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00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:54,680
are really extraordinarily beautiful
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00:00:54,680 --> 00:00:58,680
because every piece of cloth that we wear
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is made up of all these individual threads,
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whatever their weave,
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and that each one of those is still something
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that you can see,
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and the whole cloth needs each one of those.
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And so it's a social metaphor to me.
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It's actually very beautiful.
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00:01:28,320 --> 00:01:31,320
The very first piece I did
when I was in graduate school,
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I had taken a, just kind of generic gray man suit,
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and covered it in toothpicks
so that the whole skin of cloth
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became like a hide. It looked like a porcupine.
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00:01:43,294 --> 00:01:51,106
(ethereal music)
26
00:01:51,106 --> 00:01:57,320
(whispering) Find the
linear broken below a human.
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00:01:57,320 --> 00:01:58,200
I know for me,
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00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:02,400
that relationship between the
thread and the written line
29
00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:03,880
and the drawn line,
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it's about a really very fundamental act of making
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(indistinct whispering)
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00:02:11,357 --> 00:02:15,120
that the relationship of the
line that makes something
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00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,949
is related to how we make things with language.
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00:02:18,185 --> 00:02:20,460
(whispering) Certainty.
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00:02:26,421 --> 00:02:28,961
I think that I'm always trying to work
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00:02:28,961 --> 00:02:31,840
with words as materials,
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00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:34,210
the same way I work with other kinds of materials.
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The project "Lineament," which is a title
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00:02:43,240 --> 00:02:45,299
that comes from a Wallace Stevens poem.
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00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:49,400
That flat two-dimensional plane of the page
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is made into a three-dimensional body
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because each line is lifted
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00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:55,277
out of the book as if it is a thread.
44
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:59,840
And that thread of text is run through the hands,
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it's tactile, it's touched,
and then it creates a ball,
46
00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:09,440
which is the body of the page.
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00:03:10,960 --> 00:03:13,320
So. there are all these places I see
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that there's this constant tie of thread as line
49
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:20,667
and line as line of writing.
50
00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:23,558
Yeah. Now go down that way. Right.
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00:03:25,874 --> 00:03:28,316
(crinkling plastic)
52
00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:32,800
I'm just gonna set up the
pipes and then we'll bring the
53
00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:33,556
fabric over.
54
00:03:35,631 --> 00:03:37,360
Seven, eight, nine
55
00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:39,200
For me, working in installation
56
00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:43,211
is to work in relation to a particular place.
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00:03:44,234 --> 00:03:46,120
You're coming in and you're, in some senses,
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animating the space
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00:03:50,520 --> 00:03:54,360
and you don't know what that space or situation
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00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:56,480
will do to you and vice versa,
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00:03:56,480 --> 00:03:58,399
what you will do to it. (laughs)
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00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:01,800
Like, you try to make yourself blank
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00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:05,240
so that you can just pay
attention to what comes up,
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00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:06,280
what it makes you think of...
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00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:07,520
What are the things you feel?
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00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:10,600
All of those ways that your skin is a organ
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00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:12,480
and is a membrane is incredibly smart,
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00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:15,280
and immediately you walk through any threshold
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00:04:15,280 --> 00:04:17,720
and, you know, it's... you smell.
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00:04:17,720 --> 00:04:19,960
And you feel the temperature and the light
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00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:24,331
and all of those things that
have an enormous influence.
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00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:28,780
(birds chirping)
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00:04:29,638 --> 00:04:31,654
This particular building,
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00:04:31,654 --> 00:04:34,520
it's had 1200 people working here at one time.
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00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:37,800
it's in an area that was sort
of like a company town area,
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00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:39,520
and it's been forgotten.
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00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:43,452
And it just went out of
business about three months ago.
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00:04:49,727 --> 00:04:52,760
(whispering) So, it's...
I didn't ever actually visit this building
79
00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:55,200
when it was in operation,
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00:04:55,200 --> 00:05:00,720
but as a textile factory and house of production,
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00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:03,667
that was now silenced.
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00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:06,920
You know, the hollowness of that,
83
00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:10,398
the emptiness of that was very palpable.
84
00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:17,020
I'm all thumbs today with these strings.
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00:05:17,020 --> 00:05:19,394
(indistinct)
Can you grab this string?
86
00:05:20,915 --> 00:05:26,000
I wanted to have one room
be the room of the writer
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00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:28,240
and one room be the room of the reader.
88
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:31,240
And now they've become ghost-like suspensions
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00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:34,680
of silk organza that sit side by side.
90
00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:37,000
So, they're identical in form.
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They're about 30 foot square rooms
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00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:42,997
that are just suspended within the architecture.
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00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:48,251
(metal clanging)
Yeah.
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00:05:50,979 --> 00:05:52,800
Hey Emmitt, can you carry this over there
95
00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:54,249
with the other pipes?
96
00:05:54,249 --> 00:05:56,057
Honey, he can do it.
Don't, don't worry about it.
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00:05:56,057 --> 00:05:56,677
Yeah.
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00:05:56,677 --> 00:05:58,440
There you go. And then
within each of those rooms,
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there's a long 10 foot wooden table,
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00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:05,188
and upon that will be a spinning projector.
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00:06:05,188 --> 00:06:11,186
(metal clanging)
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00:06:11,186 --> 00:06:12,320
With what Anne's doing.
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Remember, she's not a traditional artist
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in the sense that it's a piece of painting
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or it's a piece of sculpture.
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This is something that people
really have to reach for
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and break out of what they expect to see.
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And it's saying really to the people
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that there's more here
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than we even saw.
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And there's someone else that's seeing that.
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Here, Emmitt, you can help
pull the projector. Okay?
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00:06:36,334 --> 00:06:39,160
So right now, this is
actually the section
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that's going backwards in the video.
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So it's the pencils, like, eating the line.
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(whooshing)
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Part of making work is to allow those things,
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perhaps that are always already there,
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but not visible to us
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00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:04,120
and to try to make them visible
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00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:06,134
in a way that they're experience-able.
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(whooshing)
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00:07:15,012 --> 00:07:19,867
(crickets)
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(bells clanging)
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00:07:28,176 --> 00:07:31,008
(indistinct whispering)
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00:07:31,008 --> 00:07:33,853
(birds chirping)
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00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:39,800
This Jeffersonian neoclassical building we inherit
128
00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:44,409
as a real emblem of an American democratic ideal.
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00:07:45,334 --> 00:07:47,861
(women speaking in phonetic code)
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00:07:48,367 --> 00:07:51,856
And so, I wanted to engage that in the building.
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00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:57,304
How do we deal with the stains of our own history?
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How do we take those aspects
of our social history,
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00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:05,280
slavery being the largest one.
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That we have a democratic country that was founded
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00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:14,040
and based in slavery, and
how do you talk about that?
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00:08:14,040 --> 00:08:15,640
I felt like the only way to do it, perhaps,
137
00:08:15,640 --> 00:08:17,011
was very abstractly.
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This stream of intensely chromed fusca powder
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sifted down the walls.
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00:08:27,160 --> 00:08:31,040
And it would catch on raise plaster dots
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that were fixed to the wall,
spelling out a text in braille.
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And that text was edited from the poems
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by Charles Resnikoff.
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From the corner of each of the four rooms,
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there was a soundtrack
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00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:50,400
of Lincoln's second inaugural address,
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which was really one of healing.
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00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:55,920
It was translated letter by letter
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00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:58,475
into the phonetic alphabet.
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00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:14,019
(Women whispering phonetic code)
151
00:09:14,019 --> 00:09:20,357
(birds chirping)
152
00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:23,947
(door opening)
(door closing)
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00:09:26,432 --> 00:09:27,767
Come on, Timmy. Let's go.
154
00:09:27,767 --> 00:09:29,357
(dog leash clanking)
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00:09:29,743 --> 00:09:33,120
I live in Ohio and I
moved back after teaching
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00:09:33,120 --> 00:09:35,692
for about seven years in Santa Barbara.
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It is a very conscious decision to wanna move
158
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and be closer to my family who live here.
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00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:43,182
This is where I grew up.
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00:09:44,099 --> 00:09:45,680
(geese calling)
161
00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:50,000
it's a, kind of, a real comfort to come home
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00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:51,480
and to work out of that place.
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00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:55,800
And for a long time, my parents also really helped
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with a lot of my work.
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00:09:56,960 --> 00:09:59,920
You know, my mother would sometimes fly out
166
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to work on a big project
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00:10:01,756 --> 00:10:03,600
and my dad has helped on projects.
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00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:07,000
And now increasingly they're...
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They provide me with that kind of backup
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00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:11,200
that actually allows me
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00:10:11,200 --> 00:10:15,101
to do the kind of traveling
that my work has needed.
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00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:17,840
I think that would be much harder for me
173
00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:19,126
if I didn't have all that.
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00:10:20,888 --> 00:10:22,745
Do you wanna help change the film?
175
00:10:24,869 --> 00:10:28,720
You can't be a mom and have
a child in kindergarten,
176
00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:31,560
and not have some other help.
177
00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:34,021
Hey Emmitt, do you wanna come see your picture?
178
00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:37,000
(mouse clicking)
179
00:10:39,584 --> 00:10:41,520
There's an aspect of my work,
180
00:10:41,520 --> 00:10:43,400
which is wanting to give voice,
181
00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:47,040
but my voice is not necessarily
the voice that's here.
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00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:49,520
I feel like my voice is maybe here and here.
183
00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:55,120
And so, how do I literally
make the place where song also,
184
00:10:55,120 --> 00:10:57,680
as well as all other words, exits the body
185
00:10:57,680 --> 00:10:59,878
actually become my eye.
186
00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:06,551
I devised a way of making pinhole cameras.
187
00:11:08,120 --> 00:11:12,680
I put the camera in my mouth
and then I unblock the aperture
188
00:11:12,680 --> 00:11:16,084
so that when I reopen my lips,
189
00:11:16,760 --> 00:11:18,380
I'm actually exposing the film.
190
00:11:32,239 --> 00:11:33,239
(footsteps)
191
00:11:34,373 --> 00:11:35,120
You know,
192
00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:37,760
you're never supposed to have
your mouth open in public.
193
00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:40,441
This is like, you don't see
people standing, you know,
194
00:11:40,441 --> 00:11:42,440
(laughs)
It's a vulnerable position.
195
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,000
It's a place where you've relaxed
196
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:47,635
and you've let yourself be open and vulnerable.
197
00:11:49,444 --> 00:11:53,347
(laughs)
Sorry.
198
00:11:54,000 --> 00:11:54,655
You ready?
199
00:11:54,655 --> 00:11:55,255
Um-hm.
200
00:11:55,255 --> 00:11:56,242
Um.
201
00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:02,920
It became very interesting
202
00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:06,720
to register this time of standing quite still,
203
00:12:06,720 --> 00:12:09,520
face to face with another person,
204
00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:11,360
like soul to soul,
205
00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:14,640
and revealing something that's not, you know,
206
00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:19,561
the surface stuff that we
usually allow out to the world.
207
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,160
The shape of the mouth is very much
208
00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:27,480
the same shape as the eye.
209
00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:30,816
And the image becomes almost like the pupil.
210
00:12:39,733 --> 00:12:40,581
(bell ringing)
(dog barking)
211
00:12:44,046 --> 00:12:44,546
Good.
212
00:12:46,233 --> 00:12:48,280
So to...and sometimes invert the location
213
00:12:48,280 --> 00:12:50,680
of one sense to another part of the body.
214
00:12:50,680 --> 00:12:56,680
Those kind of dislocations or slippages is one way
215
00:12:56,680 --> 00:12:59,120
that we come to see something differently.
216
00:12:59,120 --> 00:13:00,539
(motor running)
217
00:13:00,539 --> 00:13:01,760
Looks like there's fire coming
218
00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:02,940
off of your hand.
219
00:13:03,423 --> 00:13:04,960
Wow, look it.
220
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:08,180
Look, oh, totally magic.
221
00:13:09,604 --> 00:13:11,117
It's a flat sheet of water
222
00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:13,040
with soap on either side.
223
00:13:13,040 --> 00:13:15,920
And it's about a 50th of the
thickness of a human hair.
224
00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:18,760
And when things get that thin,
like oil slicks on water,
225
00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,920
they tend to reflect certain
colors of light depending on
226
00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:22,892
their thickness.
227
00:13:23,737 --> 00:13:24,720
I just thought it would be interesting
228
00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:28,000
to try to see if Ann would
be able to incorporate this
229
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:29,120
in any of her work.
230
00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:33,066
...Which is part of the problem.
231
00:13:33,066 --> 00:13:36,120
You know, Martin sort of
said, "I'm doing this thing,"
232
00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,160
and I...and then he demonstrated it.
233
00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:42,120
It's like, I, I don't know
necessarily how or when,
234
00:13:42,120 --> 00:13:43,560
or what I would use this,
235
00:13:43,560 --> 00:13:46,520
but it's becoming increasingly clear to me
236
00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:50,640
that it's related to everything I've ever done.
237
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:54,760
You know, it's the fluidity of the cloth.
238
00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:57,360
It's the way that you can take your hands
239
00:13:57,360 --> 00:13:59,579
and you can go through the membrane of it.
240
00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:04,800
Oh, I love this bubble coming out like this
241
00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:09,040
and the breath being made
palpably, visually present.
242
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:11,091
It's beautiful. It's beautiful.
243
00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:15,840
And I know when I'm making
work that I have to...
244
00:14:15,840 --> 00:14:17,600
Like, there's a point where I can't see it.
245
00:14:17,600 --> 00:14:20,457
I can't see it in my head. And then, you know,
246
00:14:21,640 --> 00:14:23,720
there's that moment where you can see it
247
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:25,800
and you think it might be beautiful.
248
00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:28,760
It's like it bites you, you know,
249
00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:33,880
and then you will go to all
ends sometimes to try to see it
250
00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:35,120
(laughs) in fact.
251
00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:37,176
And of course it's always
different or something else but...
252
00:14:37,866 --> 00:14:43,818
(ethereal music)