Mouth-Operated Pinhole Cameras, Bubbles, and more (Ann Hamilton) | Art21

Art21 proudly presents an artist segment, featuring Anne Hamilton, from the "Spirituality" episode in Season 1 of the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" series.

"Spirituality" premiered in September 2001 on PBS.

Whether working with sculpture, textiles, film, and sound, or even her unique mouth-operated pinhole cameras, Ann Hamilton finds all her art to be about a “very fundamental act of making.”

Ann Hamilton was born in 1956 in Lima, Ohio. Learn more about the artist at: https://art21.org/artist/ann-hamilton.

CREDITS
Created by: Susan Sollins & Susan Dowling. Executive Producer & Curator: Susan Sollins. Executive Producer: Susan Dowling. Series Producer: Eve-Laure Moros Ortega. Associate Producer: Migs Wright. Production Coordinator: Laura Recht. Researcher: Quinn Latimer & Wesley Miller. Director: Deborah Shaffer. Editor: Kate Taverna. Director of Photography: Bob Elfstrom, Ken Kobland, Joel Shapiro, & Dyanna Taylor. Additional Photography: Chip Nusbaum & Anita Sieff. Assistant Camera: Ulli Bonnekamp, John Griffiths, Glen Piegari, Kipjaz Savoie, & Ben Wolf. Sound: Ray Day, John Fintel, Alan Sawyer, Scott Szabo, J.T. Takagi, & Eric Williams. Gaffer/Grip: Steve Carrillo, Kent Eanes, Dennis Hollyfield, Greg Szabo, & Lieven Van Hulle. Production Assistant: Mark Chevarria, Anya Dehr-Turrell, Chris Dowling, Heather Glass, Melissa Morgan, & Erin Wile. Animation Stand Photographer: Marcos Levy & City Lights. Assistant Avid Editor: Heather Burak & Matt Prinzig.

Full credits available at https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s1/spirituality

Major underwriting for Season 1 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is provided by Robert Lehman Foundation, PBS, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Allen Foundation for the Arts, The Broad Art Foundation, The Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation, Bagley Wright Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, and The Foundation-to-Life.

#AnnHamilton #Spirituality #Art21

I've always felt a strong
connection between sewing
thread and writing thread.
(charcoal scraping)
(sewing machine)
I grew up doing hand work,
needle work, sewing, knitting,
embroidery, all those textile
arts. The process is satisfying,
but cloth metaphors are beautiful.
Every cloth is made of threads,
whatever their weave. Each one
is visible, and the whole cloth
needs each one. It's a social
metaphor to me. It's beautiful.
My first graduate school piece:
a gray suit covered in toothpicks,
the cloth skin like a hide,
a porcupine. (music)
(whispering) Find the linear
broken below a human.
For me, the thread, written line,
and drawn line are about making.
(whispering) The line that makes
something relates to how we make
things with language. (whispering)
Certainty. I work with words
as materials, like others.
"Lineament" is from a Wallace
Stevens poem. The page becomes
three-dimensional. Each line
is lifted like a thread, run
through hands, creating a ball,
the page's body. I see the tie
of thread as line and writing.
Yeah. Now go that way. Right.
(crinkling plastic) I'll set up
the pipes, then we'll bring
the fabric over. For me,
installation is working in
relation to a place. You're
animating the space. You don't
know what it will do to you,
or you to it. (laughs) You try
to be blank, pay attention,
what comes up, what you feel.
Your skin is a smart organ,
a membrane. You walk through
any threshold and smell, feel
temperature and light, all
influences. (birds chirping)
This building had people working
here. It's in a company town,
forgotten. It went out of
business three months ago.
(whispering) I didn't visit it
in operation, as a textile
factory, now silenced. The
hollowness, emptiness, was
palpable. I'm all thumbs today.
(indistinct) Grab this string?
I wanted one room for the writer,
one for the reader. They're
ghost-like silk organza, side
by side, identical, foot
square, suspended. (clanging)
Yeah. Hey Emmitt, carry this
over with the other pipes?
He can do it. Don't worry.
There you go. Each room has
a foot table, a spinning
projector. (clanging) With
Anne's work. She's not a
traditional artist, painting
or sculpture. People have to
reach, break expectations.
It says there's more here
than we saw. Someone else
sees that. Emmitt, help pull
the projector. Okay? This is
the video going backwards.
Pencils eating the line.
(whooshing) Making work is
allowing things already there,
but not visible, to become
visible, experience-able.
(whooshing) (crickets) (bells)
(whispering) (birds) This
Jeffersonian building is an
emblem of American ideals.
(women speaking code) I wanted
to engage it. How do we deal
with our history's stains?
Our social history, slavery,
is the largest. A democratic
country founded on slavery,
how to talk about that?
Abstractly, perhaps. Chromed
fusca powder sifted down,
catching on plaster dots,
spelling braille, edited from
Resnikoff's poems. Each room
had Lincoln's address, a healing
one, in phonetic alphabet.
(Women whispering code)
(birds) (door opening/closing)
Come on, Timmy. Let's go.
(leash clanking) I live in Ohio,
moved back after teaching
seven years in Santa Barbara.
I want to be near family.
This is where I grew up.
(geese) Comfort to come home.
My parents helped a lot. Mom
would fly out for projects,
Dad helped. Now they provide
backup, allowing my travel.
It would be harder without it.
Help change the film? You can't
be a mom with a kindergartner
without help. Emmitt, see your
picture? (clicking) My work
gives voice, but not my voice.
Mine is here and here. How do
I make where song and words
exit the body become my eye?
I made pinhole cameras, put one
in my mouth, unblock it, expose
the film. (footsteps) You're not
supposed to have your mouth open.
(laughs) It's vulnerable, relaxed,
open. (laughs) Sorry. Ready?
Um-hm. Um. Interesting to
register stillness, face to
face, soul to soul, revealing
something not surface stuff.
Mouth and eye are the same.
The image is like the pupil.
(bell) (barking) Good. Invert
senses. These slippages make
us see differently. (motor)
Looks like fire off your hand.
Wow. Magic. Flat water with
soap, of human hair's thickness.
Things that thin reflect light
depending on thickness. I
wondered if Ann could use it.
Which is the problem. Martin
said, "I'm doing this," showed
it. I don't know how or when,
but it's related to everything
I've done. The cloth's fluidity,
hands through its membrane.
I love the bubble, breath made
visible. Beautiful. I know
making work, I can't see it,
then there's a moment I can,
think it's beautiful. It bites,
you try to see it. (laughs)
Of course it's different.
(music)